There's a knick/gouge where the end of the intake cam sits in the top of the head. You can see it in the picture. It's where the missing part of the intake cam sits. Does require a new head or can that be filed or something?

 

Idk enough about the engine tolerances to give you an honest answer. Hopefully someone who does know will get on or I would ask the shop you will have rebuild it. But I would give it a min and tear down the whole engine to see what all exactly is damaged, because this may be machinable but maybe some damage from the valves would deadline the head.

 

depending on how deep that gouge is, a machine shop may or may not be able to add material and get it back to spec. but definitely pull the head and see what else you're looking at for the bottom end.

if the head isn't salvageable, there's plenty of people selling bare or full heads you could snag. or take advantage of having your engine apart and build it up! haha sorry about your luck buddy hope it all works out. merry Christmas

 

Was my daily driver. Back to driving the 1999 A4 haha. I plan on keeping it a dd and I'm broke, so idk if I'm gonna take this opportunity to build it up even though I probably should. I don't think much over 300 whp is good for a dd. I want to pull the head but it's cold a #### and I don't have a garage. Might have to just take it straight to the shop.

 

I dd 380/400 and have made multiple trips from nc to nj haha I understand the money issue though. either way this is not going to be a cheap fix but a shop will charge you an arm and a leg. hopefully someone can help you out.

 

I might just buy a head and swap it myself. I'm having trouble finding a evo ix mivec head though. There's a good chance my pistons will be OK right? I was gonna bring it to my tuner. I know there labor rate us $100 an hour so I figure at least $1000 in labor + even more money in parts. I've never swapped a head before so I'm just worried about spending the money on parts and just blowing up another engine due to poor installation.

 

Hard to say without pulling the head. The valve could have been stuck full open wen the piston came up and then they would have made contact damaging the piston. I would really pull it apart and asses all your parts so you can figure out the cheapest route and know exactly what has to be replaced. I mean it's possible that nothing was damaged if your super lucky or worst case would be that valve pistons and possibly even crank are damaged beyond reusability. Really hard to say, engines don't really blow the same. For example when my engine blew it was because the shop that put the junkyard swap in for the dealer I bought it from overtorqued the oil pump pulley. That snapped in half which let tension off the timing belt system all at once. I had no damaged valves but I sent pieces of crank, pistons and rods thru both sides of the block and the oil pan. But I got lucky and since my oil system stopped immediately no metal shavings made their way into the oil cooler. So sorry to say but you're gonna have to pull it apart. I would just suggest keeping all bolts and attachments neat and orderly so you know where they go back when you do rebuild it.

 

Ok so I should pull down pipe, exhaust manifold and turbo together, move cams and crank to TDC, drain coolant, possibly remove radiator? Then since my valve covers already off... Pull my head studs and my head will come off? Am I missing anything?

 

I wouldn't worry about putting cams and crank to tdc, should get put there after build anyways, if the shop doesn't then they aren't even worth talking to. But other then that yeah I would try and keep as much of the non-damaged things together as assemblies s you can and all bolts either put in a Ziploc and label (which I did when I pulled my stuff) or draw the part it came out of on cardboard and punch the bolts through the location on the drawn part where they came out of (which I suggest if you decide to rebuild yourself you will thank yourself so much). Then drain fluids in the engine such as oil and coolant. Pay special attention to the oil because if there are any metal shavings then you have a lot of cleaning to do and some more parts to buy. Then yes head studs and misc connectors/hoses that are attached to the outside and intake and it should come off. I would also take the time to drop the oil pan so that you can look for damage to pistons and rods and crank from underneath as well as the top.

 

O and that mivec line again haha.

 

Do to the location where my cam broke do you think it's safe to say the mivec cam gear wasn't getting sufficient oil to that location which put to much stress on the cam, breaking it?

 

I honestly couldn't tell you based on the pic. A lot of things at play and I am by no means a mechanical engineer yet so all I could do is give you theories and possibilities. But whatever it was it was a hell of a lot of force to shear that off like that if it is good, strong metal.

 

Update: pistons and valves did not contact each other. LUCKY! However my head does need replacement based on the goages where the cam snapped. Bought a used head with 50k miles. Going to be going with BR supertech dual Springs with titanium retainers And seats. Getting gsc s2 cams. Came with new valve stem seals as well. Rebuilding it myself and bringing it to the shop to reinstall. They also suggested I got a new timing belt tensioner to be safe. But wow this is still rediculously expensive even on the lucky side. I have to pay for a retune as well for the new cams. My invoice is up to $3000 and that's remaining balance after already spending $1300. It's times like these I just wish I had a garage. The $95/hour really adds up.

 

Well that's good to hear and yeah best to build it up now than just go stock and have to rebuild it in a couple months when you want more power. And yeah I'm glad I've got a garage it saves me an arm and a leg on labor seeing as how I've replaced the engine, pulled the transfer case twice and the transmission 4 times and replaced the clutch twice and rebuilt and reprinted all the brakes. That and 4 brake fluid flushes in the last 4 months and other regular maintenance stuff. Way I see it is if I do the work I get the best warrantee in the business because my mechanic won't croak or go outta business before I do haha. Good luck with getting her up and running. Just make sure you set the springs to the correct clearances so you don't have problems.

 

Well I just started a new thread because I forgot I had this code prior to engine failure. I had the engine rebuilt and this code is still there. It has a new mivec gear. The pcv passed inspection. The block was machined so they had removed the oil feed line. If this caused my engine failure I need to sort this out asap since I have a new motor. I don't know what else to look for.