Thread: Change S/C oil before LIM Change?

Originally Posted by Brammer

I know there's a benefit to installing higher ratio rocker arms, springs and push rods whilst I'm in there, but that's a little out of the price range at the moment. Is there a benefit of replacing the lifters while I'm in there without doing the rockers, springs and rods?

Also out of curiosity, how do you replace the springs on the valves with the head in place? I replaced the valve springs and valves on my motorcycle, but I had the head off for that. How do you keep the valves from dropping into the motor? I've seen friends put the motor at TDC and feed rope in through the spark plug hole, granted that was a Miata however.

no sense in doing the lifters unless they loose pressure over night and you hear em tapping in the morning.

the spring swap the rope trick works, or you can put a hose to the cylinder and use a compressor to hold them up, how i did mine.

a cam is a little more work, but costs about the same. cam always wins over rockers if talking hp gains or over all performance.

new injector o rings are not "needed" unless they break on you. they do tend to tear some times. oil the old ones too if reusing.

you also want to get like 50 Q tips, spray brake cleaner into the cap and dip the q tips in the brake cleaner, then clean out the injector holes real good.

brake cleaner and new razor blades are gonna be your new best friends.

if you do plan to change them o rings anyways, cut the old one off, do not try to roll it off, you'l break the tip off the injector.

what i did was pull the lower rad hose off the engine, wedge the hose so it cant drain the rad, let the engine drain, then take the dog bones off, then rock the engine to the fire wall and hold it there, you'll hear coolant draining out, then pull it to the rad and hold it there. not one drop fel in the engine, i didnt even do a oil change when i was done.

this act will help drain the lim of coolant. the lim coolant ports have a lip, any coolant still in the lim will stay in there if you keep the lim level as you remove it.

busting the old coolant elbow helps.

see broken elbow in pic. then pry and pop the lim up, and lift it off as level as possible, helps if you got a friend to hold the wire harness out of the way too. dont forget the egr tube on the driver side of the lim, its under the crossover pipe.

supercharger gasket is called a upper plenum gasket. its ablut 12 bucks for a gen 3. gen 5 is a metal reusable gasket.

once the lim is off, lay some rags in the valley up the sides to under the intake and coolant ports on the heads, then clean your heads matting surfaces. scrap with a razor spray with brake cleaner wipe em down till they are clean of any crap.

the egr side of the lim and sc will need the most work to get the old gasket off. its baked on in that area.

clean all that stuff up. tb gasket is like 5 bucks. un bolt the tb before you take the sc off. its easier to crack the nuts off that way. and you dont have to un hook the throttle cables, just flip the tb to the side. one less step to do.

i got a magnum lim gasket kit, iirc it came with the t stat and side water cover gaskets, load of o rings. iirc it was like 40 bucks on rock auto.

also hit the parts store, advance if you have them near by, they have a peg board full of vacuum line T's, find the pack with 2 small white t's in the little box, and 3 feet of new vac line. the vac lines never seem to make it, one or so will break. the T's always break.

just run the 195. 180 is worth less without the fans being tuned. and even then its not really worth it. id just reuse the old t stat, why fix whats not broken. you could just leave the t stat housing bolted on the lim, as your kit dont come with the t stat gasket.

the iridium plugs last longer, copper only 12 to 15,000 miles. your call.

cheap parts store brand with a lifetime warranty work just fine.

not the injectors , but the holes they live in in the head. they are nasty.

dont forget the thread sealant for the lim bolts too. clean the bolts, then apply new sealant on the bolts.

in the injector holes? no. they go into the intake runner and all that crap will go into the valves. Q tips dipped in brake cleaner works perfectly.

this stuff. little jar is like 8 bucks at the parts store. ive had my jar now for like 5 years. you need it for the water pump too when you change it, and you will one day.

use the rtv in the kit, get a extra qt or two of oil to wash down the lim should you spill coolant.

the valve cover kits get a felpro kit with grommets, rock auto once again is as cheap as you may find. local its a 75 dollar kit.

when you put the covers back on, take a look at the bolts, they have a shoulder at the end of the threads, only snug these bolts, or you will snap them.

if you do spill coolant you'll really want to dump the oil, then add your new oil and filter, run it for a few minutes, and change the oil and filter once more to make sure the coolant is out of the engine.