how bad is sand in the head

[SQ is the SQUAD]

my buddys civic got stolen and someone dumped either sand or sugar in his motor. the motor still ran when it ras recovered but we yanked it out. i pulled off the head and you can see a lil bit of pitting in the cam journals. i got a free gsr head but i was wondering is the head worth repairing? i am going to pull apart the block soon to see if i can salvage anything else but i am sure that is where all the sand is

[Vanilla Sky]

bad... very bad...

if you can clean it out, it'll be fine, but until it's gone, it's just gonna ruin that motor rapidly

[SQ is the SQUAD]

the head is already off, i am about to fully dissasseble it, but my question is with the pitting from the sand, is the head considered ruiened?

[NXRacer]

depending on how bad it is it could be worthless. i'd take it to a shop to have it evaluated.

[Vanilla Sky]

i agree with NX... if you haven't worked with heads and don't particularly know how bad it needs to be for the head to be useless, then just have it looked at... it can be a real biatch to get all of that sand out, even with proper equipment

[AccordEpicenter]

cams are VERY HARD and it takes alot to pit them, so these guys are dead on, sounds like this engine might be ruined depending on the extent of the damage

[SQ is the SQUAD]

the cam itsel isent pitted, but the head part where the cam sits has slight pitting

[88Accord-DX]

Well.... depending on how long he ran the car with sand/sugar in it would indicate damage done. The sand might have just sit in the head before to much damage was done. Re-place the cam bearings if you plan on working on it. Valves might have suffered some damage. That is iffy call whether or not it is bad.

Blow some compressed air down the oil jackets off the head and block if you think you can save the engine. Pour some engine flush in it a few times. Oil filter might catch some of it.

[smufguy]

if its sugar in the head, then i guess a full oil flush will work fine cause the head will melt the sugar and the flusher (kerosene based or any other regular flush chemical) will flush it out and the new oil will be good.

If its sand then possibly the cam journals on the head will be scratched. I think cams are cast steel (stock) and i doubt if they are even dinged, but if any, i would say it is probably the part where the cam sits on the head is ruined. I dont think it will be that bad, but a professional viewpoint is always satisfying.

[POS carb]

i wouldn't be as woried about the cam/head as I would be the rod/crank bearings and cylinder walls. Flush the engine out with motor oil 2 or 3 times and it should still run for another 50k miles or so depending on how bad it is

[SQ is the SQUAD]

engine is dissassembled already. i am not sure how long they ran the engine after they stole the car but when we got the car back it wasent running cuz they took the ecu. i am mainly conserend with the head, i am not even using the block.

[POS carb]

then just swap the valve stem seals, cams, and lifters, the head should be fine