L1 Head Gasket Change

[JamieNeve]

Once she's out, get her on the bench and remove the cam cover (4 seals for the plug cavities may come up with it so keep an eye out. Also, when replacing the cam cover later, make sure to only torque the 4 10mm bolts to 13NM or you may snap a cam cap!!)

Remove the 4 spark plug funnels. Just to make things easier for later, set #1 and #4 to TDC, and mark on the cam shafts and chain with tipex where the teeth slot into the cam chain. (Not required, just speeds up the re-assembly.)

Now remove the pulsing cover on the right hand side of the engine. Remove the cam chain tensioner (and blade), (before you remove, just check that your cam chain is still within the stretch tolerance on tensioner.)

Now you can remove the cam caps. This must be done very carefully as I found out first hand, they are very prone to cracking (and un-replaceable). Start by loosening the 2 allen key (5mm I believe) bolts on the right hand side, for the oil-way covering the cam chain, then begin loosening the 10mm bolts holding the cam caps on (they are not very tight, around 15NM I think.) make sure you loosen them bit by bit, releasing the tension evenly on each one (when you re-install them, make sure they are ALL seated correctly on the dowels, and aligned. Also use the torque settings from the manual.) give them a bit of a shake, and they should come up from the dowels, make sure that you do this carefully, as you don't want them falling into an oilway!

Now you should be looking at both cam shafts, as mentioned earlier, mark on the cam chain the teeth that they are sat on.
Now, the camshafts can easily be removed (i'd tie something to the cam chain to stop it falling down, just makes it a bit easier again for later!) When putting everything back together, make sure the cam marked "in" is on the carb side of the engine, and the "ex" on the exhaust headers side.

Now, without the cams in, you should be able to see 10 (12mm I think) bolts holding the head on. Before continuing, I would recommend putting some tissue or something over the small oilway holes, incase you knock a shim out, or drop anything! Now you should begin removing these 10 bolts, there is a specific order to remove them, which is specified in the manuals, I believe you start in the middle and go outwards evenly. Make sure you not which bolt comes from which slot, as a couple of the bolts are slightly longer. When these are all out, there is a single bolt left to remove. This is located in the cam chain slot to the right of the head. It is a 5mm allen key bolt, which is a bit fiddly to remove!

Once these are all out, you should be good to go! Give the head a bit of a wobble (don't pry it open with a screwdriver or anything like that) and it should come up fairly easily. Remember when pulling the head off, the cam chain guides will come up with it, unless you have removed them before!

That is about it! Get the head skimmed if neccesary, try and remove as much carbon and old headgasket as you can (don't use anything harsh ie. metal/ wire etc. ) chuck a new head gasket on, and do this all in reverse!

I don't think there is anything i've missed, but please point it out if I have anyone, haven't had my hands on a zxr in a couple of months now

Any questions, feel free to ask on here/ pm me mate! (Reply will be much quicker if you pm me as I get an email!)

Good luck!

[JamieNeve]

Just seen your other post, if you have already done it, hope it went well, and sorry for the delay in replying! If not, good luck!! :p

[Dominik]

Good guide!
The order to fasten the 10+1 head bolts is marked in the head itself (numbers from 1-11). You can take a look there instead of having the manual always around. Losen it the other way round (starting with No11).

Be careful when you take the head off the cylinder block is also lose so you can theoretically take them up together. Best if someone holds it down while you take the head off.

Finally you should always have an eye on the 'guide sleeves' (google translate, don´t know if its right. The small cylinders between head and block/ head and camshaft cover). Don´t loose or forget them when putting everything back together!

[TurkishJordo]

Haha thanks guys, got it all back together...running like toad! Sounds like timing is out or coils, but it was definitely TDC and both camshafts lined up perfectly at the top of the head, noting the journals so that it's not 180 out, now she is idling (just) but when revved seems like there's a misfire, i have no idea what went wrong but I turned the engine over manually when it was all back together and all 3 markings lined up every time! My luck lol

[JamieNeve]

What do you mean by sounds like the timing or coils? Is it making a knocking noise?

If you've counted the gap between the teeth, and it what it should be, shouldn't be timing! No shims got dislodged/ fell out when removing the head did they?

Also, is your cam chain tensioner taking up the slack correctly on the cam chain?

Finally, check the valve clearances, doing one job can often cause another problem to highlight further, valve clearances are a common one, especially around the head gasket failure mileage!

[JamieNeve]

Also, check what cylinder is misfiring (exhaust temp), move the coils around, and see if the misfire moves! If it does, it's your coils!

[TurkishJordo]

Won't turn on unless full choke, when it does turn on it will not idle, goes to around 4k revs, reduce the choke by the tiniest amount and it drops and stalls, any amount of revs and it also stalls.

Previously when I did have it revved up, around the 6k mark it sounded lumpy and misfiring, although I've swapped coils over and still doing it, checked timing and that seems fine, pretty lost for ideas now

[TurkishJordo]

Water on all four header pipes, it seemed to dry out just as quickly on them all! Going to check timing on all four. The engine doesn't sound like valves or anything, and cam chain is very tight, assuming the tensioner is doing a good job, definitely

[JamieNeve]

what you have described sounds like fueling/ starter system, not the engine. Are your carbs sealing properly to the intake? If it only starts full choke, could be leaking air, and running mega lean. Check the funnels from the carb are properly clamped down, you may need to adjust your pilot jets!

[TurkishJordo]

Engine breather pipe is off with the air box, carbs are properly seated and correctly clamped, carbs were cleaned a couple of weeks ago and set up to 2 turns out, it was running the best she's ever been until the head gasket went and the engine came out

[JamieNeve]

Try a compression test to make sure the head is sealing properlly, also some spare coils to test with would be useful for you, as it is common for them to come loose when being removed. Maybe make up some fresh HT leads. There isn't much to go wrong from replacing the HG, just the timing, possible valve clearances and cam chain! The full choke thing does suggest it's running very lean for some reason

[TurkishJordo]

Apparantly running ZXR's with no engine breather or air box makes it run like cr@p! Running like a dream now, thanks for the advice guys!

[TurkishJordo]

Or it could have been the slightly wet carbs, or even the coils as i sprayed some carb cleaner in there, redid the coils, engine breather and air box on, then the tank and cracked her on, ran sweet from the get go! So could have been any of the above

[TurkishJordo]

Next problem (didn't take long) - i now have no lights on my rev gauge, I've removed the bulb and it's blown, can anyone tell me if there are 2 bulbs in there, as the manual suggests? And 1.7w?

[JamieNeve]

Good to hear it was so easy to fix! I'm not too sure on the bulbs, however when my temp gauge one went, I went to Halfords and they come in packs of 2 anyway!