85Irocbuild

I've been changing out my head gaskets on my camaro, and just got the heads removed. However, I noticed that the #5 piston head is pretty dirty, and the #7 piston head is a little less dirty but has some very slight wetness on one edge. Are these big problems? I'm not very proficient when it comes to internal engine parts. They valves on the backside of the heads looked a little gunky and old, so I'm wondering if that has anything to do with it. Is this just a valve issue, or something worse? A friend told me that i should just carry on and button the engine back up and run sea foam through it, but I want to get some more opinions.

Night rider327

iTrader: (13)

Truthfully that's really clean for a used engine.

The little wetness may be from a valve seal leaking a little oil (very common), but it's not bad at all.

No big chunks of carbon build up, just light soot. Looks good, maybe spray brake parts cleaner on a rag and wipe over piston tops, clean off decks, and button her back up.

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

#7 looks like it was getting water into the cylinder, which is why there's less carbon buildup in it.

None of it looks at all abnormal.

You can mess around with "cleaning it up" if you want; but the fact of the matter is, within acoupla thousand miles, it'll be right back to exactly how it is now. IOW, futility.

Most important "cleanup" you can do, is to make sure there's none of the chunkies left stuck in the ring lands, or of course, abrasives left over from cleaning up the deck for the new gaskets. Things like that tend to scour vertical scratches in the bores, which then result in blowby. A vacuum cleaner is perfect for taking care of that.