allenheathdj

My head is almost done getting ported/polished according to ALANIZ who is totally awsome at his work. My question, should I treat the titanium valve retainers with anything i.e. cryo/nitirde. I heard through the grapevine that titanium retainers wear out. I dont want to gernade my brand new engine because of a retainer failure.

BenR

I've never experienced a faiure, especially with properly machined Ti retainers. And Alaniz is meant to be right up at the top (no experience with them being in the UK).

Sideways

I would go with whatever Joe recommends. He's the man.

allenheathdj

he told me don't do it but I want to have a bulletproof head.

redsound

and exactly how many heads have you professionally built? bottom line is, EVERYTHING will wear out after X amount of time. you will be fine with normal titanium retainers

allenheathdj

Thank You... redsound, sideways....BenR

Big Ben

Titanium does have a shorter fatigue life than steel (not much shorter), but you really don't have to worry about them wearing out. Now if they were aluminum, then you may need to worry after about 5 to 7 years of use. But I've never heard of retainers being made of aluminum, it's too soft.

Voodoo_S2K

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe nitride treating is just suppose to make the surface smoother like they do on shock shafts. Cryo would actually help with increasing the strength of the metal.

StinkyTofu

When i had my bseries head sent to joe alaniz, i had titanium retainers in my head prior to him doing the headwork on my car. After taking a look at them when he took them out, i decided to take them out and leave the stock retainers in there. With only 15k miles, there were already signs of galling from the valve springs. If you ask me, its not worth the risk...if a retainer breaks, the valve drops and Boomm......bye bye to your f20c. Its one thing to blow up a b-series motor. However, its a nother thing to blow up your f-series.

alexf20c

A blown motor is a blown motor.