Shaving Heads

[Jon Pennington]

A post on the B15Sentra.net forum got my attention:

  http://www.b15sentra.net/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19985

The original poster (a suburbanite of Houston, I believe) is thinking
about getting his '01 SR20DE's head shaved at (literally) Grandpa's
speed shop.  The machinist is talking about taking 0.030" from the head,
gasket-matching the ports, extrude-honing the passages, and doing a
3-angle valve job, which all sounds good, except for the shaving part.

Reading the archives, it seems that Dr. Lew has the most to say on this
subject, but the ten or so posts that I found with "shaved [milled]
cylinder head" really said nothing about the specific production
clearances between the valve and the piston.  I saw the number 0.050",
but is that a production clearance?  Do the roller engines have
different pistons?  Do our cams lift any more than non-roller cams?

In short, is this a safe idea at all for a mostly-street car?  Can I put
a TTZ radiator cap on, get a low-temp thermostat, and stay cool enough
not to blow something up?  The only reason I'm even thinking about it is
that a shaved head takes a *lot* less effort than a bored block, and is
consequently a lot cheaper.

--
-=|JP|=-           Need a good geek?  I'm unemployed!

 '01 B15 SE/PP  |   http://www.xanga.com/cowboydren/    |  <//><
 '95 SL2 Auto   |       cowboydren @ yahoo . com        |