Cylinder head

[M452xhy]

Hi all has anyone on here rebuilt the cylinder head , as I’m planning to over haul the engine and need advice

[16v_paddy]

Yes but the best thing you can possibly do is to take the head to an engine builder to do it, I don't bother doing them anymore, all I do is completely disassemble it - which saves a little bit of money on labour costs - then take it to my local engine builder & say "make that new please"

It normally costs me around £130-150 to have it thoroughly inspected, pressure tested, chemically cleaned, all the valves re-lapped, light skim & reassembled with new stem seals.

The cost only starts to go up if you need new valve guides which are around £7-12 each but you wont really know if they're in need of replacement until the head is being inspected

[u33db]

Not done a clio head but in March i rebuilt a Rover k series head, with some mild porting and uprated cams after my headgasket blew in my 45.

Its a relatively easy job, think i was £30 for the valve compressor, £15 for the lapping kit and then just time.

Thats head has been fine and has ran well....i didn't even skim it.

That said given the age of clio heads I would echo the above - be all means disassemble it but take it to a specialist for rebuilding as they will spot things.

e.g I currently have a VVC head (likely a similar age to yours) off being modified at Sabre Heads right now...to me it looked fine to fit as is but has already needed the valve seats recut, exhaust stud helicoiled as well as the modifications i wanted done.

The Rover VVC heads are NLA - assume Clio ones are the same thesedays - so no sense winging it really.