Quick question re: valve shims

[jonathan909]

Does the early (e.g. '01) H6 use the same shims as the EJ25D?

[GeneralDisorder]

No they use the larger one's only used on the 2002 WRX EJ205 (one year only). After the '02 model year the EJ205 went to shim-less buckets:

https://parts.subaru.com/p/Subaru_2002_Legacy-30L-AT-4WD-Outback-Wagon/Shim-Valve-T=229-T=230/49225351/13218AE790.html

Click on the "what this fits" tab.

Sadly the cam follower is specific to only the EZ30 and so it does not appear it can be upgraded to the shim-less bucket like the early EJ205.

GD

[jonathan909]

Poop.  I've got a couple of intakes whose clearance is a little greater than spec.  I was hoping for an easy interchange to solve it without adding a lot of time and hassle.  There's an EZ30 (still) in the junkyard.  That might be my only hope.

Edited September 24, 2022 by jonathan909

[jonathan909]

Is there an affordable (the Subaru tool lists for about $1100) approach to depressing the lifters for shim removal?

Otherwise I can't see getting these things in the yard without taking an entire engine - it's just not practical to disassemble the timing cover in order to remove the cams - or even the heads.

[idosubaru]

Good question - I’d rather walk 50 miles barefoot while brushing teeth than pulling those in a yard. 

The H6 shims I’ve done have always needed reduced, not increased. So I just do it the easy way and grind down the backsides to gain the clearance instead of doing that baffling shim matching voodoo. 

[jonathan909]

Not in this case - the gap is a little too great, so I need a thicker shim.

I'm doing the other head today, so I'll see what the extent of the problem is.

[jonathan909]

On 9/24/2022 at 3:41 PM, jonathan909 said:

Not in this case - the gap is a little too great, so I need a thicker shim.

I'm doing the other head today, so I'll see what the extent of the problem is.

Now I'm a little weirded out.  I just measured the other head, and most of the intake valves have excessive clearance (most by a couple of thou, but one by nearly 50%).

This doesn't make a ton of sense to me.  Other than the (obvious possibility) that the last person who worked on this thing screwed up the clearances, what would cause them to be consistently higher than spec?  Lower is easy to understand - wear.  But higher?  I'm confused.

One possibility that struck me is that my feeler gauges are NFG, but they mike out to exactly what they should be.

[GeneralDisorder]

Was it noisy? If not leave it alone. 

Valve clearance specs increased a bit after the bucket/shim engines. If it's not noisy and didn't throw any shims..... run it 🤷‍♂️

GD

[ronemus]

On 9/24/2022 at 11:01 AM, jonathan909 said:

Is there an affordable (the Subaru tool lists for about $1100) approach to depressing the lifters for shim removal?

Otherwise I can't see getting these things in the yard without taking an entire engine - it's just not practical to disassemble the timing cover in order to remove the cams - or even the heads.

I've done it by popping the camshaft out; they can then be easily removed with needle-nose pliers.  It gets a bit fiddly keeping track of which shim goes where and what the clearance was to calculate the new shim thickness, but it avoids buying an expensive tool.  I've only ever done this once on any given vehicle and I keep mine 12+ years, so I couldn't justify the price tag on the tool.

[jonathan909]

(nonquoting post deleted/replaced for clarity)

Edited September 26, 2022 by jonathan909

[jonathan909]

9 minutes ago, ronemus said:

I've done it by popping the camshaft out; they can then be easily removed with needle-nose pliers.  It gets a bit fiddly keeping track of which shim goes where and what the clearance was to calculate the new shim thickness, but it avoids buying an expensive tool.  I've only ever done this once on any given vehicle and I keep mine 12+ years, so I couldn't justify the price tag on the tool.

On an EZ30 ?!?!  I've done it with EJ25s, but the timing cover on this thing is special, and it has to come off (front and back), along with all of the timing kit, before the front bearing cap can come off, before the cam can come off.

[jonathan909]

2 hours ago, GeneralDisorder said:

Was it noisy? If not leave it alone. 

Valve clearance specs increased a bit after the bucket/shim engines. If it's not noisy and didn't throw any shims..... run it 🤷‍♂️

I can't honestly answer the question.  It's a kit car I got a couple of years ago; bad HGs and a PO who'd started to pull it apart before realizing he was in over his head.  So I jammed things back together just enough to get it to move around under its own steam, but as it was a severe coolant leak to the great outdoors, haven't run it more than a few miles.  Didn't notice any noise, though.  I just don't know what the limits are.  Intake spec is 9.5 thou.  What can I live with?  12?  More?

Btw, weird stuff found in the block's coolant passages.  In addition to quite a bit of rust, this odd fibrous/powdery residue.  I'm guessing it was some sort of panic sealant that didn't.

[GeneralDisorder]

The later shimless engines have specs of .30 to .40mm. That's 12 to 15 thou.

If you didn't hear a bunch of valve train noise then run it. 

It's not a swiss watch or a space shuttle. It's closer to a dirty, noisy, farm implement. If it isn't broke, don't fix it. 

GD

Edited September 26, 2022 by GeneralDisorder

[jonathan909]

24 minutes ago, GeneralDisorder said:

The later shimless engines have specs of .30 to .40mm. That's 12 to 15 thou.

If you didn't hear a bunch of valve train noise then run it. 

It's not a swiss watch or a space shuttle. It's closer to a dirty, noisy, farm implement. If it isn't broke, don't fix it.

Wow - that's a lot of range.  I feel much better about things now.  Thanks a ton.

[idosubaru]

17 hours ago, jonathan909 said:

Other than the (obvious possibility) that the last person who worked on this thing screwed up the clearances, 

Did you see signs it was worked on before?   If so then your guess is highly likely - they had parts in a bag and mix and matched when reassembling.

[1 Lucky Texan]

do these guys have a tool for that?

 

https://www.company23.com/products

[jonathan909]

6 minutes ago, 1 Lucky Texan said:

do these guys have a tool for that?

https://www.company23.com/products

No - first place I looked.  I did find what appears to be a cheaper ($275) version from Japan, though.

[jonathan909]

22 minutes ago, idosubaru said:

Did you see signs it was worked on before?   If so then your guess is highly likely - they had parts in a bag and mix and matched when reassembling.

Nothing obvious, and it had OEM HGs, so I suspect this is the first time it was pulled apart.  I would tend toward GD's suggestion that they simply loosened the tolerances.  If the shims had been juggled it'd be more likely that there'd be a random mix of clearances under and over spec, where what I'm seeing is pretty consistently over.