Andrewdrazin

I have a S13 cylinder head with the 3 top valve cover bolts, 6 cam jurnals and it has the casting number of #53F.
my question is, can I use a cylinder head that has 5 cam jurnals? the only cylinder heads that i have found for sale are ones with 5 cam jurnals but have 3 top valve cover bolt holes.



im stuck, your help would be appreciated.

thank you.

mechanicalmoron

WHAT cylinder head?

(no, I'm not going to fucking count them to know what engine you're talking about - but it seems pretty obvious that you need to figure that out, and get the right engine family and generation head, amirite? An "s13" is, in common parlance, a whole iteration of the nissan "s" chassis, that came with quite a lot of different versions of several totally different engines)

And, fuck the journals, if you have the right parts to put it together, the rear wheels don't know anything about the cam journals.

NukeKS14

Assuming you're referring to a KA head here. There are differences between fwd and rwd KA heads, which is most likely what you're seeing in regard to the difference in number of JOURNAL caps.

Short answer; no you cannot use a fwd KA head on a RWD application like the 240sx. Its also possible youre finding a frontier truck head. You CAN swap between s14 and s13 240 heads, provided you swap to the appropriate valve cover for that s13/s14 head.

[edit]

The S13 and S14 KA look very similar, save the location of the 3 valve cover bolt holes. It may help if you link to pictures of the heads in question and let us know what your application is.

S14 240sx KA head;



Altima KA head (note the spot for the distributor directly off of the camshaft);



truck KA head (5 caps);

Andrewdrazin

thanks NukeKs14 for that information on that, and yes I was talking about the KA24de's. sorry for not puting that in there.
that makes more sense now that i see witch is witch. i just see a lot of cylinder head for sale that say "fits altima, frontier, 240sx and pickup truck.
i think i have the s13 head, cuz it has the 3 valve cover bolt holes in the middle.
so i will just keep shoping for the correct one.

Andrewdrazin

could you tell me the casting # on your cylinder head?

NukeKS14

Don't know. I didn't get pics of the back side of the head while the motor was out. Didn't matter to me at that time.

mechanicalmoron

Don't get the altima one. How fucking hard is that? You don't need a casting number, you just need to not buy a head from anyone who uses the word altima. 91-94 240sx.

And if it's from a different generation, get the valve cover.

What did you do to your head, anyway? Why can't it be reused?

Andrewdrazin

warped the the cam placement out of specifications.

mechanicalmoron

Like, the journals are out of line?

With the caps torqued, does the cam spin freely?

You can get the head bent in an oven by a machine shop, before resurfacing. Or if it's already been resurfaced, you can use lapping compound to take a little meat out of select journals.

Or, if it's not warped to hell and back, you can slap a squishy graphite gasket with copper coat and all that to give it the best chance at life, and the torque will set the head strait - as long as it's not a MLS gasket, it's not as critical as you might think.

Some sketchy internet head isn't going to be better, it's going to have been blown and changed by every ricer and their cousin. And their dog. And their dog's cousin.

What I'm suggesting is vaguely advanced-level-fuckery, but why not? It's already been fuckered, the others have all been fuckered, and it's not exactly priceless.

Andrewdrazin

yeah im working on it right now, im going to take a little at a time and see if i can get them straight again.

mechanicalmoron

Torque it to the block on a piece of cardboard before you do that, or if you have a spare block. That'll flatten it as much as possible, so you don't just make it worse when it's back on.