valve seal problem

ok, I was rebuilding my B20 and got it all done, and while on the head i used an air dremel/wire brusk attatchment to clean the ports and then used compress air to blow them out and there was some cleaning solution in all the ports too and on EVERY port i put the blow gun in and sprayed the air I could see bubbles getting by the valves. I am sure that the springs should be holding the valve sealed and this shouldnt happen, but am wondering since ALL of them do it if it is something like since the pressure is trying to escape rather than enter the cylinder, does the compression help seal the valves or are all my valve seals shot?

did you take the valves out? if you were cleaning the ports with the dremel and wire brush you could have possibly just got some loose carbon proping the valve open a little bit... if that is the case it will make its way out of there on its own.

I know this would be a real bitch but you could also carefully take the valves out and make sure you know where they came from and lap each and every one of them... this would give them a like new seal on their seats, but since there is 16 it would take a while. also, you have to be careful to get ALL, and I do mean every bit of the lapping compound out of the port areas... that stuff is not so good inside the engine

side note, the valve seals are only there to keep oil from getting past the valves and being burnt in the combustion process... the valve "seal" you are speaking of is the seal between the valve itself and the seat the valve rests on when it is closed, this seal can be renewed as previously stated by lapping the valves

ok, thanks, I need somemore info on this lapping thing, I dont know exactly what it means. I am gonna try and search as well too. and no I did not remove the valves at all.

I am hopefully going to be putting a vtec head on it that will come from a good running engine so I wont have to worry about this prob. I plan to buy a 99-00 SI or a 3rd gen GSR hopefully within the next couple months.