Mike Holmen

Dr. Evil, have you found a spare head? Harry seems to have a decent hook-up on 12v heads. I'm going out to the coast in a few weeks, I could drag one back for ya. Seen a few CTD 12v heads on ebay go for $600 loaded.

Should try to buy a VP or CR head? $1600-1900. Big bucks in my books and they crack almost a day after they are installed.

JHansen

That sounds good Shane-I've got no burning desires to work out in this stuff either.

jesussaves

say it aint so CHINA??

Mike Holmen

Can't hurt to try them out, nobody I know has run them. The stock head isn't that great. Its hard to find a good used one that isn't cracked. Just about every motor I have the head is junk. Either the valves are burnt out or they are cracked in the intake to exhaust seats. Had one bad enough to weep coolant.

Try to justifing a head replacement on a new oring head thats about a year old. I will try a china one out just for giggles. 12V stuff is priced decently, if the valves seat and there are no cracks, it a winner in my books. The stock head is made in Brazil, so what the diff.

Dr. Evil

Thanks Mike!! Thats a great offer - can you let me know right before you leave? Im not sure when I will even look at it due to the cold.

Dr. Evil

Ive called a couple of places and was basically told that Chinese heads are pretty much the only ones available (I wonder how accurate that is?). Peak Performance told me theyve been using them for a couple of years and there is nothing wrong with them.

Mike Holmen

I just bought a 12V head yesterday, loaded with #60 springs. Going to get it oringed and ported up. Then pour the egt's to it and see how it makes out. I think cummins still have 12V heads available. Ordered pistons, 425 head studs and fluid damnper as well. Going to order the cam today, going to try out the 107.5LSD colt grid. I plan on running the 370 nozzle injectors, that just been worked some. The pump will just be stock rebuild, 4k gsk, weston DV's, and what ever plate I can find or grind. I want to have a fresh engine for my 02 truck, for the up coming dyno days.

Dr. Evil

Very nice. How is your ranger coming? Are you going to be ready for race season?

Hey, you need some help at work??

Mike Holmen

The ranger is going very slowly. I need a tubing bender that can bend 1 5/8 0.120in wall tubing. I building the chassis for SFI 25.5 (7.5sec/180mph chassis spec). With me not working, hard to find the fun bucks to do the build the way we want it. I have all the fiberglass (doors, front clip and rear bed). The engine is still in pieces, but coming along. Some one off pieces going to be used for the build. If its finished for a NHDRA event I would be very happy.

I just trying to get that 180 pump 12V rebuilt that I bought from Jason last year. Probably sell it. I'm also rebuilding a 02 SO VP engine (from that grey truck) and a 03 HO engine (since I have three of them now).

Dr. Evil

busy busy...

nickg

usually you dont see coolant on the ground under the engine and out the exhaust at the same time. you might be lucky and just have a small water pump leak (either the big O-ring gasket or weep hole).

I have my grids unhooked, as they are manually controlled, and mine will smoke like you would not believe, you'd swear the engine was blown, especially when its as cold out as its been this past week.

If you can smell coolant in the exhaust, you'd be sure you are burning it, usually a visual can be decieving.

have you managed to get the hood open to have a peek?

Mike Holmen

Engines don't run to long running on coolant. It will cause the oil to loose its lubrication pretty fast and cause issues with your rings, if your buring it. How much coolant you loosing? I ran a 2.2 dodge shadow for several months on a cracked head, way way back in time when I was going to Nait. I had to clean plugs every so often, just so the car would run right. It was ok on a 8:1 worthless wornout gas pot, a nice ride like yours Dr Evil, I would get it fixed sooner than later.

As for me being busy, not really. I just like doing mechanical stuff and putting around in the garage during the cold nights.

Nick, mine smokes a ton even with the grids turned on. I'm cycling on/off at least three times. I tend not to plug in my trucks that often. I even had a few neighbors complain about the purple smoke. I told them its black smoke, not purple. The new truck doesn't even smoke any black stuff.

Dr. Evil

Thanks for the advice Nick and everyone else as well.

No I havent even looked at it - I parked the truck the minute I saw the coolant. I was worried about hydrolocking it. Work and a new baby (that doesnt sleep at all) makes things pretty busy and the cold doesnt help either.

Dr. Evil

Its been awhile - but I should be able to have a look at this on the weekend. Its about time that it warmed up.


For those of you that have had a failed head gasket - where did it fail? Inside or outside? Is it possible to hyrdolock a cummins? Or will the coolant just burn off if its getting into a cylinder?

Thanks.

Mike Holmen

Mine were all leaked out side, and yes you can hydrolock.

Could try to pressurize the coolant side and see where it leaks. Throw a leakdown device into the cylinder and add pressure. I would at least take the turbo off, probably easy to hear/see air or coolant.

I had one head on an engine, none of the intake valves seated and half the exhaust valves are no good. Low miles on the motor as well.

I just looked at a set of ctd 5.9L rods that I have at the machine shop. Found a few with the small end bushing, that didn't look too healthy. Going to get them replaced. I thought that would be on parts that hardly gets worn. Man these rods are beefy stuff. Once I get the rod all balanced up I throw a few pic's out. The rods are out of an early VE engine. I have taken out about 10lbs out of the 5.9L crank. The crank looked good, knifed edged, oil holes were radiused and same with the bearings throws.