Not too long ago I had a 4G63 cylinder head with valves that were leaking like crazy. I pulled the head from the block and found the most carbon build-up that I have ever come across. The solution – rebuild the head of course!

I began by removing the stock turbo 4G63 cams.



I then organized all of my lifters and rockers, because keeping the parts in the same spots is ideal.



Each valve spring is held in with two “keepers”. Over time, the keepers become stuck in the spring retainers. If you tap the spring retainers with a socket, it shocks the keepers, and breaks them away from the retainers. This makes your life much better.



4G63 heads require a special valve spring compressor tool. I didn’t take a picture of it for some reason, but the moral is – you need to remove the keepers from all of the valves.



Don’t forget nourishment. Your body needs it if you want to be at the top of your game.



For fun, look at the valves in cylinder #1



Now look at them opened



Look at the valves in cylinder #2



Now look at them opened



Look at the valves in cylinder #3



Now look at the opened



Look at the valves in cylinder #4



Now look at them opened



Pretty bad carbon build up, don’t you think?

This is what they look liked before I cleaned them with a wire wheel.



This is what the valves look like after the wire wheel (same valve!).



Once cleaned, each valve needs to be lapped into the seats with valve grinding compound.



New valve seals should always be installed, because they are cheap, and you are already this deep into the repair.



I like to test the valves to make sure they hold water. If they hold water they should hold air just fine too. If the water leaks out, then you have a damaged valve or need to lap the valves better. In my case, I had 2 valves that were damaged beyond repair. The other 14 were A-okay!



Almost ready to reinstall!



Lastly, everything needs to be torqued properly. Make sure you use a good torque wrench because this is one of the times it really matters.



And that is what it’s like to rebuild a 4G63 turbo cylinder head that is packed with nasty carbon build up. The whole project was pretty cheap (less than $50), and took a few hours. Next time, maybe I will clean off my work bench first so that I don’t look like a car-part hoarder.