Does anyone have any knowledge or heads-ups to share with me on this matter?

Also, I'm wondering if anyone has a FSM (factory service manual) for my car, any help would be much appreciated and you'll probably be saving my life.

 

There's a pretty complete PDF manual linked in the maintenance sticky at the top of the B5 forum. Can't comment too much on rebuilding the heads, but make sure if you floated a valve that they didn't tear up the pistons. A few of the techs, mods, and other guys here have had their motors apart more times then they probably care to remember, i'm sure there's plenty of advice out there

 

Rebuilt a few myself. Just last summer I replaced the head gaskets on my friends' 12v 2.8 (same engine you have).


Get. A. Service. Manual.

I'm not convinced the pdf will really do it for this job. I'd be more inclined to trust a Hayes or Chiltons manual. You can get them at any Napa/Carquest/Autozone ect. If they dont have it in stock they can order it and usually have it for you by 10am the next day. The best 20 bucks you will EVER spend on your car.

Before you start read in the service manual how to find "Top Dead Center" or "TDC" on the engine and about how to set the cam timing if you're putting in new heads. We just replaced the head gaskets, so I marked where the cam gear was on the head and made sure it was on the same tooth when I reassembled.

You will need some specialty tools, namely the weird inverted torx bit sockets for the head bolts. Forgive I dont know the actual name. The bolts have five outward points that are kind of rounded. I managed to borrow some from my neighbors' friend.

To start you will need to disconnect all of the wires and vacuum lines from the top of the engine and lay them out of the way. LABEL EVERYTHING. let me say that again.

LABEL E V E R Y T H I N G ! ! !

I cant stress this enough, if you dont label where you unplugged things you will have a complete nightmare putting everything back together. I take a piece of masking tape and write numbers on each connection. So the first thing I unplug I put a "1" on both the wire/line/sensor that I unplugged, and where it went to. The next item is "2" and so on.

Before taking off the intake and the heads drain your radiator. After you do this there will still be a good bit of coolant left in the engine block. When you take the heads off it will make a bit of a mess and will pour some coolant down into the cylinders. As soon as you pull the heads off you need to sop that water up with some towels. Then spray some WD-40 into the cylinders to keep them from rusting while you have the engine apart.

You then need to scrape all of the old gasket material off of the block surface with a putty knife, be careful not to scratch the surface. When you're done with that get it nice and clean with some steel wool. Remember to vacuum/wipe out all the debris from the cylinders and spray a little more WD-40 in there.

When you reassemble you need to use all new gaskets and torque everything to it's proper specs with a torque wrench. When torquing down the head bolts start by just tightening them down a little bit so you press the head on evenly, you dont want to cause warpage. Start with the inside bolts and work out in a spiral pattern. Like this

7 4 1 5

8 3 2 6

Torquing them down in steps until you get to the proper spec (so go 40lb-ft then 60lb-ft then 75ft-lbs lastly 85ft-lbs or whatever your final spec is). Then go back and check them all one last time.

While you're assembling pay attention to your cams to make sure they are timed right. The manual will tell you how to do this in detail. But I remember that if you put the engine in Top Dead Center before you tear it apart then the timing brackets on the end of the cams will be lined up flat across, just check to make sure they arent 180 degrees out.




Sound simple enough?

It's really not that bad as long as you follow the manual and pay attention. You should be able to do it, if you do get stuck however, dont be afraid to call a friend who works on cars alot, they can help you out in a pinch.

Oh, and have fun with the EGR valve on the back of the intake, it's a bitch. Just have to be patient when trying to get the threads started.

 

I appreciate all the advice, especially the labeling idea. I already have a hanes manual and kinda hated it for all the other work ive done on the car, I'm pretty familiar with working on cars in general, I went to school for it. But you know how those darn audi's sneak up on you like a cell-mate sometimes.