Ok, maybe you can help me out. I have a 1990 Sunbird GT Turbo sitting around that I basically got for free. just had to pay to have it towed to the house. you should have seen it, no rear end assembly, body kit all off, and no front end except for the bumper. since then I've gotten it mostly back together. As I started to tear the engine down, I found that a part on the underside of the cam housing cover had melted down onto the cam and head. then I got the head off and found where the aluminum of the head was burned or something around the valve seat. the seat is fine but there's a gap in the metal around it. Have you ever seen anything like this? Also, no surprise at all, the turbo is shot and junkyard vultures chopped up the AC system, and confiscated a few other things like master cylinder, alt... ok, Advance Auto has a cylinder head says for casting #098 and on the front of the head I have it has R 90 209 89 6 .. Is this the right head? Any help is appreciated, thanks

Get the head from advance that is cheaper. 098 sounds right. The more expensive head is for the N/A motor. It sounds like that engine got REALLY hot. When you drop a new head on it, pay close attention to your oil pressure for the first few hours of driving and if it starts to drop take it home ASAP and change the oil.... look for coolant.. Mine never got hot enough to melt anything but the block and head both cracked. While trying to run a block sealer and with a new head on it ended up spinning a bearing... such is life...



Cardomain|Myspace

Hi.

I'd like to see a picture of this motor and the melted part. I have a feeling I know what melted, on the underside of the cam carrier cover is a plastic peice that holds in one of the two cam carrier oil seperation filters - that then "shrouds" the crankcase evac pipe that runs to the crank case. I believe it's high impact plastic. I suppose with enough heat it COULD melt but I've NEVER seen anything like that. So I'd really like to see a picture.

Found I had some pics of these parts off my old 1.8 on my website, the grey or black peices here are what I'm assuming you meant melted...



With that much heat in the head, I can only assume the oil temps (if there was oil!) would be off the charts, and that your bearings in the lower end are probobly trashed, from the oil burning off them and running dry. before I ran a motor like this I'd check your rod bearings. I would replace the head too that's the easiest thing to to do. N/A and turbo heads of the same years (87-90 at least) )are essentialy identical but the cams are different. I believe everything else in them is the same, so you should be able to find a junk head cheap.

Hope this helps.

Hey, very helpful indeed. That is exactly the piece that melted, and dripped onto the cam and the top of the head. Since I believe you know what you're talking about, I checked another head I got from the same person the car came from, that came from an N/A Sunbird, along with intake man but I checked and the #'s are the same, and this head looks to be in usable condition, could use a little cleaning up. But anyway, that's great news because I was told the head wouldn't work so I had it sitting around collecting dust. I will definately check all the internals and I'm sure it will get new bearings and rings along with anything else it needs before I ever try to start it. Now I just need lots of time and money to work on all my projects, 3 in all, but you can't always get what you want. Thanks for the help