The f22 dohc and h23 heads should have the same size valves and be the same valvetrain wise... that's what I keep hearing. One time I heard that the H23 cams are larger than the F series dohc, but that was from one source, everyone else said they were the same.

At least they should be the same for my builds sake. I'm getting a good h23 cylinder head from a tuner company one state away I found on CL. 130 for the whole thing, it includes everything and only has 50k miles. Guy said it was a "j-spec" which I presume means JDM. My only guess is some guy made a G23 Vtec swap and gave the head to the shop cause he didn't need it. The shop looked very professional, they also said they only tuned with Hondata so they're high class too I guess lol. Here's the place if you're interested:

Performance Cars - Dyno Tuning - Engine Rebuild

 

This is pretty generalized, I don't know the specifics for Honda. But it's pretty much standard practice over a lot of different make engines.

Since the camshaft bearings don't have separate "bearings" (like the main & rod bearings), those holes are bored through after the cam caps are bolted down to the head. The result is they are uniquely matched to the head. Even to the extent of which cap is which on the same head.

Now if you bolt the caps from a different head, you should inspect very closely. An easy thing to check is whether there's a tiny "step" in the surface of the bearing bore, where the cap meets the head. It should be as perfectly lined up as possible. If you can catch your fingernail on the step, it's probably too big.

More difficult to check is an egg-shaped hole. Use a bore-gauge to check diameter up-&-down then compare to diameter side-to-side. Should be perfect. Even with machinist tools, that step or the out-of-round tolerance might be tighter than what you can measure.

So you might try fitting up the cam caps & check as best you can, but probably still some risk in using them.

 

OKay thanks guys for the heads up. I got updates. Just got done removing the valves and the stem seals. I used a pry bar which went very smoothly for the last dozen of them, till I used a little too much force and heard a small *snap* noise.

This snap sound was a small part of the upper portion of the valve seat breaking. You can see the pic here:




Will this be a problem? In my opinion I don't think it will be a problem because there are two notches on the valve seat that hold on the seal, I only broke off the top one and in a small place... Just let me know so I can get some affirmation, that would be much appreciated.


And here's what the head looks like without the valves. Needs some serious cleaning on the intake side,

 

Here's a better pic of the chippage,





I think just some JB weld would fit that up fine, no big deal. I don't want to do extensive work on this head and remove the guides, that's just too much money. It is a JDM head and a rarity, so I'm excited to get this swap done right. Let me know what you'all think.

 

I wonder what a chip like that would do.

 

Just me but JB Weld on that is a bad idea.

Doesn't look like it got to the guide side.......so I'd have new seal installed and see what you have from there.

 

Okay thanks for the reply. I will try that and then have the gashes welded up.
Maybe i'll post a section on how the head swap is going, I was banned from HT (permanently) and on Cb7 forum (6 months) and am looking for another outlet. Is this a good site to post about head swaps or should I look somewhere else?