Inliners International Forums General Discussion Engines My 230 valve seals failed. What's my next step?

I bought a freshly rebuilt 230ci. Built by a race shop and original owner put 4000 miles on it and did a V8 SBC swap about a year ago. I have not run the engine on my run stand yet. Pulled the valve cover and everything is really clean. However, I found a teeny tiny spring broken off of the #6 umbrella seal and other seals are either torn or out of position. See photos.
So I have a list of questions.
1. Why did the seals fail?
2. Should I pull the head?
3. What style seals should I install?
4. The engine builder re-used the old valve springs but used shims. Should I buy new valve springs?
5. Would you test run the engine on the run stand as it is now to test oil pressure? The way things look right now, I plan to install all new seals except maybe the rear main seal and snout seal.

It appears that only the exhaust umbrella seals have failed. Curiosity.

I just talked to the engine builder in Kansas. Although memory fades after a few years, he thinks this engine had umbrella seals on the exhaust valve stems and positive seals on the intake guides. So my solution will likely be to replace the exhaust seals with either the original O-ring style or get new umbrella seals. I'll leave the intake seals alone. He's pretty certain it has new valve springs. It should be a simple fix. Then I can get on with running the engine in the stand.
Thanks
Jay

It may have so much lift that the keepers/locks hit the seal and break it. Or the seals should sit deeper on the boss to prevent contact. Installing identical seals at same height will only repeat the damage.

That might be the problem if these were Positive seals. However, I'm pretty sure these are umbrella seals that are mounted on the stem itself.

What valves were installed in the head, where they SBC or application specific 6 cylinder? As 70Nova said, repeating the same thing over again and expecting a different result won't happen. You need to find out why it failed first, before you replace anything. I would start with removing one of the worst ones and looking at the top of the guide and the bottom of the retainer on that particular one you remove. The type of damage your showing is cause by the seal being pinched or crushed between those parts.

That would be an awful lot of lift to destroy the seals. Too much, in fact.

Did they install both the seals and the o-rings perhaps? Maybe that might do it.

Also wouldn't you not want the stock valves with umbrella seals? I'm thinking the o-ring groove might be pushing and pulling on the seal lip. Is that a possibility?

Not really. Several things have to be considered. The style seal with the spring like he has shown actually sits higher on the top of the guide than a plain OEM style umbrella seal does. Second, if the builder used a SBC valve instead of the application specific 6 cylinder valve, he lost additional clearance between the retainer and guide because the SBC valve is shorter than the 6 cylinder valve. So even with a stock cam, either of these two scenarios can/will cause interference between the retainer and guide. The spring is too far away from the seal to be the problem, he should look at the retainer and guide as being the problem. He didn't really give us any details about the valves or sizes, so we need to systematically eliminate these as possible causes before we move to something else as the cause. I've seen this happen many times, so I would start there.

delete

One more thing:
If you are not running O-rings on the keeper grooves you can get rid of the metal awning shields under the retainer for a little less mass.

Yes, sounds reasonable. However, the damage to the seal is from an interference issue as I mentioned above. You are at a point where disassembly is required to examine and verify the cause. So choose the worst seal and begin with that. Its possible that the interference between the retainer and guide is enough to actually "shine" these 2 parts as well, so look for tell tale signs of contact between those parts. You may see other evidence of contact once you have them apart.