So ive been lurking around through all kinds of stuff on s2ki while on night shift, and I keep running into this crap, anyone had any problems with this? or have any input/insight?

Im hittin around 82k on my car and with all the added crap im started to get paranoid again... so its going to be a valve inspection day for me very soon.

 

I inspected the ones on my 127k mile '00 AP1 when I got it a year and a half ago and they were all fine. I think the real answer is -- don't do a mechanical overrev, and you don't seem to have problems...

 

i need to check mine. do u want to set up a day were we can all meet (well the people that want to get theirs checked) and look at the valve retainers?

 

I wouldn't mind learning how to do this. Let me know when you're doing this.

 

Hmmm, well yeah, that could be cool. Maybe we could do a lunch meet or something.

Ive never over reved it, but I just have real bad luck with random crap, also I have no knowledge of the prior owners, so this will let me sleep easier. Its not hard to do, so I figured it wouldnt hurt to check it out. You can tell if they are cracked w/o removing the cams cuz the valves sit lower in the reatiners, it can just kinda be a bitch to see.

 

a local's retainers looked good from the top, but once he removed them, he was able to see they were slightly cracked...

 

I've also done quite a bit of reading on this, and it seems that Billman is the expert. The way I understand it if they crack then they sit a little bit lower. He does agree that you can't always see the cracks. I think he even goes as far as to say you can rarely see the cracks from the top. But he does say that if they are cracked they will always sit a little lower. It makes sense, that they would have to flex in order to crack, and that same flexing would cause them to drop when they crack.

 

Yeah thats what i get, you wont see the cracks, but you can see the valve stem sit lower.