79 replies to this topic

[HeavyIron]

So here is the deal. I have been struggling with misfire issues and have tried everything. I went with three temp range colder plugs, MSD 6AL, Blaster SS coil, IPD plug wires and I think I finally got it cured. So I do some hard runs 50-90 and 70-120 I am boosting 22-23 psi steady and spiking to 25-26 no issues. So I decide to do a hard launch and brake torque from 2500. I hit 7500 in first and then have a massive explosion - the front of my car is covered in a cloud of smoke and it now sounds like I have a 3 cylinder engine. Turns out I blew the side of my radiator out and lost all my coolant in like 10 seconds. My mechanic checks it out and determines that I have no compression in cylinder 2. According to him, the head lifted which caused cylinder pressure to leak past the HG and pressureize the cooling system blowing out the radiator. Even though new OEM head bolts were used, my mechanic feels they are not strong enough. I am of the feeling they were not properly torqued when he assembled the engine. Any opinions?

[Spanky]

I would be pissed. Sorry to hear of your bad luck.
What head gasket did you use?

['12brotruckmofo]

Wow. No opinion, but wow. Good luck man. I think Zaitz had some headgasket trouble with his built motor; maybe try contacting him.

[550]

Good luck, shoulda gone with the ARP's :-/

I thought mine was a HG as well, when in fact I put a pin sized hole through the cylinder and it torched the metal and reformed it in the cooling jacket area.

I learned the hard way that John Ross is an incompetent boob. At least he didn't build your engine.

[matt b]

Talk to Greg (GDizzle), he had some HG issues on his built motor, I think. Hopefully, he'll chime in.

[c_long20]

He wouldve had to mis-torqued all the head bolts. But even if he did you should have seen problems earlier. How long ago did the motor get built? Got any pictures?


Sorry bout the bad luck man

[550]

Something I just thought about was that it is a performance rebuild, hardly anyone will either a. except blame, or b. warranty such work. :-/

[maciekb2002]

Just to throw my 5 cents, I have almost 20k on my build engine with garrett t04e and now t04b vtrim , never had head gasket issues . My car had seen 28 psi up to 7200 rpms.
You don't need studs for 25psi . That is number that we can put over 400whp with right tune.
Check your head . I hope nothing happen to you like Greek guy , head cyl walls.
Let us now how it looks.

[550]

For 200 dollars, why not. Re: Studs.

[HeavyIron]

Motor has about 2500 miles on it right now. Spoke with Justin and a couple others - I will get pics tomorrow as I am going to see my tech. I want to measure the bolts to check for irregular stretching. I will be taking Justin's advice and putting on a HG from a S60R- it only needs a minor modification to work and is a lot stronger. Hopefully once the head is off no other problems I.E. burnt valve, cracked liner etc are discovered...

550, on 18 November 2009 - 02:15 AM, said:

For 200 dollars, why not. Re: Studs.

While in there I will do that as well. Hey, it's only money...

[550]

Bro, I hear you :-/ When I did my engine build I cut corners and trust me... I have regretted it ever since :-(. (I also don't have that motor anymore, it lasted fricken 3 months. haha I suck.

[lookforjoe]

Sorry to hear the bad news. I'll call tomorrow - too late now.

I'm using the stock '98 T5 head gasket & (new) head bolts.

What were your AFR's @ 7500? That is a little high - could have got way lean at that point.

[Black Betty]

IIRC Gregs issues were with the gasket when he first did the rebuild, he thought it could have been damaged/ he didnt have an angle gauge.

Also I talked with Chuck and he mentioned the stock gasket should be just fine infact the s60r gasket might loser compression and hurt performance.

read this:
http://volvospeed.co...__fromsearch__1

[Dave 54]

Black Betty, on 18 November 2009 - 03:30 AM, said:

IIRC Gregs issues were with the gasket when he first did the rebuild, he thought it could have been damaged/ he didnt have an angle gauge.

Also I talked with Chuck and he mentioned the stock gasket should be just fine infact the s60r gasket might lower compression and hurt performance.read this:
http://volvospeed.co...__fromsearch__1

Quote from www.chevyhiperformance.com
Finally, head gaskets play a critical role in compression ratio and offer the easiest and least expensive route to changing compression. However, head gaskets can be a bit deceiving. You might think that all you have to do to compute the volume is to treat the gasket like deck height. If we compute volume for a standard 350 Chevy gasket like the Fel-Pro 1003 with a compressed thickness of 0.041 inch, we come up with 0.515 ci, which equals 8.44 cc. But this assumes the gasket bore is both round and the same size as the cylinder bore. In reality, the 1003 gasket is 4.166 inches in diameter and is not round. The better way to determine compression is to use the manufacturer’s published gasket volume. Fel-Pro’s published gasket-bore volume for the 1003 gasket is 9.1cc, roughly 0.7cc larger than our computed volume. While this isn’t overly critical, it does affect the accuracy of the final result.

[HeavyIron]

lookforjoe, on 18 November 2009 - 03:16 AM, said:

Sorry to hear the bad news. I'll call tomorrow - too late now.

I'm using the stock '98 T5 head gasket & (new) head bolts.

What were your AFR's @ 7500? That is a little high - could have got way lean at that point.

I wish I had time to look. It happened so fast - first gear redline and BOOM! I was just trying to hold the wheel straight from torque steer! It was fun right up to that point.

[Zaitz]

I blew two head gaskets both while using ARP studs. Detonation is probably what caused mine. Was running 22-23psi. S60R gasket.

[L8 APEKS]

Damn dude...23 psi full time...spiking to 26psi...on pump gas?

.....

[EricF]

L8 APEKS, on 18 November 2009 - 09:25 AM, said:

Damn dude...23 psi full time...spiking to 26psi...on pump gas?

.....

So?

And stock bolts and head gasket should be fine, and will be all I ever use on any of my cars.

One thing to consider with ARP studs is that the correct torquing procedure involves re-torquing after a couple of heat cycles. The same as any stretchless bolts. You may notice that on engines such as ours, this is hardly practical or convenient I also suspect that nobody using ARP studs with whiteblocks actually does this.

OP, did you hear any detonation?

It's quite possible they torqued the bolts wrong... Do you know if flatness of the block and of the head was checked? I would personally insist that the head be resurfaced and if anything needs to be done with the block this time around, the block be resurfaced as well.

[lookforjoe]

I wouldn't use the special S60R gasket. If you notice, the S60R also has unique plugs due to the change in height.

['12brotruckmofo]

With the number of people running 850 gaskets without problems that's what I chose for my rebuild too. Granted I'm still on a 15g, but it's held up. If you've got time, why not talk to cometic about a custom gasket? I'd be down for a group buy if they want to sell more than one.