I'm currently in the process of replacing my old cylinder head with a used one from one of the board members here since one of the cylinder bolt holes broke completely off near the oil orifice. The internals on my old head has about 160,000 miles on them and I was planning on taking the old head and the replacement head to a machine shop to have everything transferred over since the replacement head is just the housing. He also has the cam caps that came with that head that he is willing to sell as well, but i wasn't sure if I needed it or not.

Will I be able to use the cam caps from my old head on the replacement head?

I'm also going to be replacing all the O-rings, valve stem seals, timing chain, timing chain tensioner, timing chain tensioner arm and guide, AP2 retainers and keepers on the intake side. Is there anything else I need to do or tell the guys at the machine shop?

 

The cam caps are matched to the head. Do not mix them up. You must use the caps from the sellers head on the head he is selling you, unless you want to line bore it, in which case it's cheaper to get a good head.

 

Thanks for the heads up SgtB I'll make sure to get the cam caps for the replacement head.

 

I have built many s2k engines, and have put cap assys on different heads many times.

The caps themselves are a 10 piece matched set and cannot be mixed up.

 

I stand corrected. Most people speak like mixing caps is the death of a honda. Are other platform like the d and b series different.

 

Aha! I forgot the S had a cam cradle. I was thinking of permanent cam bases. Makes perfect sense now. Thanks Billman.

 

Like Bill said, complete cam tower sets can be swapped to different cylinder heads. Caps can not be swapped.

 

So, I could use my complete cam tower sets which are the 5 top cam caps and 5 bottom cam bases marked [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] from my old head into the replacement head without having to line bore it? I wasn't sure so I told the seller to send the cam caps that came with the head he was selling me. Since I didn't see them selling the cam cradle separately and can only get them by purchasing the head so I figured as SgtB said that it was a matched piece to the head that it came with. If that's the case then I'll have an extra full 10 piece matched set.

 

As long as you keep the top and bottom cam caps together it doesn't matter what head the towers go in. Just do NOT mix different top and bottom caps.

 

Gotcha okay i understand now thanks J-GO. I wonder why Honda doesn't sell those as sets but wants you to buy the head in order to get the cam towers.