It's a good idea to have a valve cover gasket kit around just in case you do. The Viton® gasket becomes brittle over time from the heat and petroleum exposure, and eventually it won't be reusable. But if you're not leaking oil now, and there aren't a ton of miles on the car, you can usually clean it up and reuse it without any problems. Just put black silicone on any corner or seam in the seal when you re-install it.

The valve cover gasket kit will come with new sparkplug o-rings, and valve cover fastener grommets. They're usually pretty cheap, and if you're going through all the trouble of polishing a valve cover, a new gasket might well be in order.

If your valve cover is coated with one of Honda's lovely black or red finishes, you're going to hate stripping it, but it can be done. You're better off buying a bare one from eBaY and polishing that one instead. For instance... my CX's valve cover was black... a '93 non-VTEC Del Sol's valve cover is bare aluminum. I bought it for $10.50, and polished it while keeping the car in service. It took me a week to finish it, and 2 days to polish it.

 

Jafro-

Thanks for the awesome post, that helped me out a lot What is the Viton gasket, is that the stock one? Also, my car has 80k on it, so I'm just going to replace it anyway to be safe.
How long do you think it would usually take to polish the valve cover. I'm assuming I start with low grit, then work up to high grit, then hit the polishing wheels? Also, I think that my valve cover is just the bare aluminum. Here is a pic

 

your beatblasted block does not look shiny at all!
i've seen pictures of ampliers bead blasted and they are shiny as hell.
there are different "levels" of beadblasting from what i learned

 

Good move. Replace it. It's almost 10 years old, right? You'll probably need it. Viton is a rubber compound that is resistant to most petroleum products that you find in a car. It still breaks down over time, but it lasts longer than rubber. You don't really need to know anything about it except if you ever see anything that says Viton®, that's what it's made out of.

About a week if you spend 4-5 hours a day on it.

You're lucky. Yours IS the bare aluminum. You should still clean the outside of it with brake cleaner because I think Honda clear coated the bare ones, and that will gum up your sandpaper if you wet sand it. Brake cleaner takes it off. Don't use wire wheels or anything like that to strip it because you'll be trying to sand out the scratches from it for days. Use non abbraisive strippers to remove the clearcoat and you'll save yourself a lot of work later.

Start with 220 until you've stripped EVERYTHING that you don't want showing on the finish. Then use 320, 400, 600, and finally 800 before polishing. You want to spend at least 4 hours with each grit, or until imperfections are gone. You also want to sand in the same direction once you're finished with 220grit. The polishing wheels won't remove ANY scratches, chips or pits in the finish, that's up to you and however much time you spend sanding.

 

It really depends on what material you're working with. Rough aluminum casts don't usually turn out very shiny, but Stainless Steel sheet metal will gleam. In the case of cast aluminum stuff, the only way to really bring out a healthy shine is to sand and polish it. Some take longer than others, depending on how long the manufacturer let the parts cool in the dies. The longer it sits, the better the cast. Mitsubishi believed in quanity, not quality, so I'm paying for it now.

Billett aluminum (like your fuel rail) can be polished without all the sanding. Anything that's made from billett will turn out great with very little work because billett stock isn't porous like cast stuff is.

 

Here's a potentially really dumb question: Do I have to remove the valve cover to polish it, or can I do some of it while it's on. This is my daily and only driver, so I'd rather not have it down for a whole week.

 

as long as you don't use chemicals, you can polish it while its on the car

 

Man... I couldn't imagine doing that. Yes, you could, but the metal shavings will be stuck all over everything in your engine bay when you're done.

Why don't you buy a valve cover off of eBaY like I suggested? Those things go for dirt cheap. That way you can polish it, install it when you're done with a new valve cover gasket kit, and be done with it without the mess. If you haven't polished anything before, I definitely don't suggest you try it while the part is on the car.

 

just buy a powdercoated one no work

 

I would just have it powdercoated there is a color ( almost chrome) that looks just like polished aluminum and you don't have to worry about repolishing it.