We i have enough miles on the rebuild for the first valve adjustment. while I'm at it i'll be putting on the headers and a ghl muffler and a waste gate that doesnt actually stick about half of the time. I have done the valves on my carrera several times no big deal... But this thing how do you reach the upper valve cover on the drivers side?the intercooler is off do I have to take apart the cis manifold? it was hard enough getting all those big rubber elbows hooked up when it was on the engine stand.

 

bump how do I get to the intake valves on the drivers side?

 

You can pull the intercooler and associated parts off to get to them. Pulling the engine is easy and my save you time to get to the head bolts as well in the long run.

 

thats what i did. I undid the back motor mounts and dropped it about 6 inches and did it from the bottom. worked great. except the lining up the motor mounts part mine dont line up real well so you need 3 hands to get it back together

 

Just out of curiosity.. did you disconnect anything to drop the motor 6 inches(shift coupler/oil lines)? Was that enough to get around the engine tin.. because that sounds like a great idea. I did mine from the top, but removed the intake elbow from the air metering plate, and then also moved the turbo inlet pipe. It was all a pain in the a##, but I would do it again, just to check to make sure it got the right amount of clearance. I ordered new motor mounts, so I have to drop that anyhow.. may be a great time to try your method.

 

no unplugged the rear wire harness plug had the oil line off to put on headers any way. plus I was changing out the engine crossbar with rennline stainless non bent up one. let it down until the fuel line started to straghten out stopped prior to stressing it. there was plent of room. but i had to run it back up each time to roll the motor 120 degrees for each set of valves so I just laft the jack under it and raised and lowered as needed.

 

I gotta be honest, I can get to the driver's side number one intake valve without even removing my B&B intercooler. I have no smog equipment, no heat (so no fan hoses going down), and I do have to remove the black plastic cover that protects the engine compartment fuse panel. It's not fun, I look like a freaking circus sideshow act, and my wrists, and forearms are sore when I'm done, but I can get it. The others go quickly!

 

Sand_man, my intention is to try the backside method for valve adjustment, which I'm pretty sure you need more room for, but I haven't tried it yet, so I really don't no.

Thanks for the info Ken. I now have something to do on my car!!

 

Just curious but how long would it take a shop to adjust the valves. Oh yeah how often is this needed.

 

Do it yourself. We're here to help (a little knowledge is dangerous) and it's not that bad. Endless info in the Pelican forums on the procedure. Here are a couple of "primers" to get you started.
http://www.pelicanparts.com/techarti...lve_adjust.htm
http://www.pelicanparts.com/techarti...alveadjust.htm

But to answer your question, because I've never paid someone to do it, I'm not really sure. $300 to $500, I'm guessing.

Scheduled maintenance interval for valve adjusts is 15,000 miles.

 

Engine out of the car, $300-400. In the car, they wanted $1000. I did it myself.

 

His question was around how long, and not how much.. done right, I would say about 3 - 4 hours. I include a beer in there and time to empty the oil and all that funky stuff. To be safe, budget a whole day the first time around. There is much you should remove, although I'm going to try dropping the engine a little this weekend to do it a different way.

 

What exactly is the "Backside method?"

Wait...that did not sound right

 

check this out.. you'll get a better idea of what it is.. don't worry, it's not a link to a site you shouldn't be looking at during business hours!!

zee backside

 

well first you get a lot of lube....
actually it's a way of measuring with a normal feeler guage between the actual camshaft and the cam follower. i tried it and found it to be harder than the normal way. with it in the car out of the car it.s pretty easy. the one thing i did learn from it however was that I had been adjusting the valves too loose. your supposed to feel it drag when sliding the feeler in the normal method but the first couple times i did my valves in my carrera they were pretty noisy when i was done. So I tried using the back side method and could only reach a few of the valves that way but it was enough for me to realise i was way too loose with the normal way. so once i got the correct feel using the normal method they come out prefect every time. after you have done it enough times, you can grab the cam follower and give it a shake and feel if you got the adjustment correct or if you need to do it again.