Supergoat Garage

In my last post I talked about my plans and said I had an ND2 head on the way. In that time I also emailed SPS Motorsports in Germany to ask directly about them mounting an ND2 head to an ND1 while keeping the ND1 pistons. They said it was fine. All I needed was the head (and intake manifold of course) but the ND1 pistons should be fine. I also talked with Keith Tanner from Flyin’ Miata while at MATG. I jokingly said that I would just slap it on and if the pistons and valves meet, I’ll just toss full ND2 engine in since mine is getting up in miles. He reminded me to just use putty and check the valve clearance first. Which would be the smart thing to do. I’ll go that route. He tends to know what he is talking about.

The head actually arrived the day before I left for MATG and I finally unboxed it today. I was very pleased with what I found.

Here is what it looked like in the pictures online:

Cylinder 4 looked awful. Here is what I found when I unpacked it:

I removed the cams and lifters. I left the valves in because my valve tool has not arrived yet; but this let me check for any bent valves. Since water entered one of the cylinders, and water does not compress, a bent valve would not have been out of the realm of possibility. Visually it all seemed fine.

I flipped the head over and filled up each bowl with oil and left it. After about 30 minutes it had not leaked at all. Next I blew compressed air into the intake and exhaust ports to look for bubbles. All good.

At this point I was feeling great about this purchase. I cleaned the oil out of the bowls and started to clean it up some. There appears to be no damage to the head at all. Just a lot of buildup. I didn’t completely clean it. I’ll let my local machine shop do that. But it looks just like a normal cylinder head.

Here it is after a little bit of light cleaning.

Cylinder 4 is still quite grimy. But this head looks very usable. I could hypothetically put it back together and slap it on as is and be fine. But I’m not going to do that. I’ll have it professionally cleaned, decked and checked out prior to that.

As one last test, I turned off all lights in my garage so it was pitch black. I shined a light in each intake and exhaust port. I could not see any light bleed from the valves. Of course, the head still needs to be professionally inspected but so far, all signs are pointing to this being a great head for my project.

I’ll update again as I make more progress on it. Next, I need to acquire an ND2 intake manifold to pair with it. The same seller had one, but I held off because I wanted to check the condition of this head first. Unfortunately, it sold in that time. I should have grabbed it too because it was being sold at half of what others are going for. But I will keep looking.