GlockLT4

I was encouraged by J-C-5 to put both umbrella and regular seals on my valves.. what are you guys' inputs on this?

scorp508

These are going onto my heads...


High Performance Teflon Seals
Requires machining of valve guide boss for installation. 16/pkg.

They cost $23.99 a package.

GlockLT4

How much does the machining cost though.. i keep getting caught with machining costs everywhere...

scorp508

I dunno, we did that ourselves. I would think he could include it in the valve guide price, because that is what gets ground, the guides.

MrNuke

not to sound dumb, but........
What exactly are those in the pic? and what do they do??

Thanks ;-)

Happy Holidays to everyone by the way.

scorp508

They are valve seals. The go on top of the valve guide (which guides the valves straight into the combustion chamber). They seal between the valve guide and valve stem so that no oil gets down into the combustion chamber.

GlockLT4

Yup... held on with springs or the lock type things like seen above. Springs are the stock way i believe.

AquaMetallic94LT1

Lingenfelter seems to prefer viton in his heads. He also uses bronze guides on his aluminum heads. I have read that a lot of head builders are not using pc seals because the viton are more durable.

Curtis -

Head work and parts can easily exceed the cost of the cylinder block machine work. It important to get the heads reworked properly for max performance. There's nothing worse than rebuilding a motor and having heads that weren't in the same condition. Been there, done that.

The last quote I got was 200 bucks for installing guides and doing the valve job work. Bronze guides are around 120 bucks or so. A good set of valves is about 150 @ 8.00 per valve. That still leaves keepers, retainers and springs. You want new keepers (these are cheap) and new retainers (dropped valves are not cheap to fix. Titanium retainers are a big help on the valve train at high rpm but they are pricey too. Rebuiding an engine is expensive as you are finding out.

Nathan Plemons

Hey Glock, when I did my Hot Cam we had to replace the valve seals. The new springs (doubles) wouldn't fit on the old spring seat so we had to use the new ones. In order to do this we had to replace the valve seals because we couldn't get the old ones off without destroying them.

Anyway the hardest part about that is FINDING them. I called everybody, even the dealership was clueless (big shock there huh) Anyway, I finally called up Total Engine Airflow, their business is heads, so I assume they might have valve seals. Sure enough they have them in stock. As far as I can tell they are just like the stock ones, but I don't burn any oil. I didn't burn any before, but I haven't lost any ground, I keep it in the upper RPM's a lot.

Mez

Just buy the stock GM seals or replacements not requiring any machine work. For your engine, no point to get anything else. When I got my heads done, thats what I did.

As for Titanium retainers or other racing stuff, the stock LT4 rev to 6400 and does not have any of this stuff. If I decided to set my rev limit higher, I certainly would consider switching to titanium retainers. If you are not planning on reving it over 6400, this is a waste of money, in my opinion.

MrJay

I dont know how much it will cost you to cut the guides for the seals but it is not that much if you were closer I would do it for free.
Teflon seals are good seals but they are made more for racing and not the street, they are made to be changed more offen, you can get good ones that are made out of rubber they seal a lot longer then the teflon seals because they give more at the top where they seal the most the teflon dont give as much as the rubber so it will not form around the valve stem like the rubber will and the rubber ones has a spring to make it seal even better when they have more time on it.
I dont have a pic or a part number on me but I will try to find it and send it to you if you want.

Merry Christmas everybody :seeya
Jay

AquaMetallic94LT1

LT4 heads have sodlium filled intake valves to reduce their weight. Titanium retainers are good for about 5HP and not likely to fail.

Chris@SD

Use the Viton blue seals! They work great!
Good Luck,

john25

Use the replacements GM sells. I used these with my LT4 Hotcam install. They're the same ones used on the ZZ4, 385hp Fastburn & the LT4. I've heard the same about the Perfect Circle all teflon seals about not using them for the street. Also when the valve guides are changed, they are not ground out, they are pressed in and out. They then machine the guide boss smaller to accept the PC seal if needed.

SPD DMN

Mine are stock replacements. I have had no reason to switch to anything else.

jcazin

ya, gotta agree with the Vitron blue seals- like that positive seal around the exhaust, and so far in 10K miles, hasn't burned a drop of oil or shown any signs of overheating the valves.... any good jobber should carry them.

Teflon wears faster- not a problem when racing, but a hassle on the street.

No Go

I'm going with stock replacements as well.

Cost from Jeff Kopp was like 20 bucks for 16 seals. No machining is necessary...KISS:)

ChrisB

Yep, I would stay away from the teflon seals - they have a bad tendency to leak until you are up to temp - and no one likes a smokey car.

The viton seals are the way to go.

h rocks

Glock, what do you mean by "regular seals" and umbrella seals? Are you talking about the "O" rings on the tops of the valvestems? If that's the case, then that's part of the stock seal kit which should be fine. I would be careful using some of the real "positive" Teflon or Viton seals along with any additional seals. (especially on the exhaust valves) Oil has to get to the interface of the stem and seal. Some of these seals are almost too good, and you need to be careful. Many engine guys rebuild for the average street driver or drag racers. I ran into a problem with the aforementioned "too effective" sealing on the exhaust valves. A guy I had used for a couple of years installed the LT4 style positve seals on both the intake and exhaust valves *along* with the O rings on both. Running my car on the track for three hours on a given weekend with that setup trashed my ex guides in 2,000 miles. Not enough oil got to them.

Bottom line is you can't go wrong with the stock umbrellas on the ex and the black standard seal on the intakes along with the O rings. This is the standard kit theat you can get from GMPP that requires no machining, and they are cheap and effective.

GlockLT4

yes, that would be them.. i'm going to stick with the ones that came in the felpro kit (stock). Sounds like enough people have had good luck with them... and KISS always seems to work hehee....