Im toying with the idea of not O-Ringing my head this spring, with the outpour of money to buy the twins, it is leaving me a little tight with cash.

I am thinking that if I am vigilant with the retorques on the ARP's that I will be ok for this year, what are all of your thoughts?

It held for the last 2 years, and I was pushing 55 psi daily out of the silverbullet, and lots of boost when pushing nitrous.

My thoughts are, if I can make it through this season, then next winter I can do the head right, get a cam and everything in....

Kevin

 

Kev, this is just a race truck right? The worst case you just put it back on the trailer and trailer it home and fix. I would push the stock head on a normal gasket. I ran mine up to 70's psi. Orings are a pain. You have to do four to five real good re-torques to get the orings to bite into the head gasket, so you can really go beat on it. My problem, I want to beat on it now, not later... I think that you're in that same catergory, just pushed up about two notches

 

High boost combined with nitrous will be the end of the mls gasket. I know it's going to suck to pay for it but I'd do it the right way now so you don't have to be down mid season.

 

Yeah I know Nathan,,, you need to give me a price on something, so I know what I am up against,, LOL... Im just trying to make it all work

Kevin

 

I believe lmills is using the MLS gasket and Arp 625's with good luck at so far. I would get the head checked make sure its nice and straight same with the block and with the 625's the MLS gasket and an bypass kit it should be good for awhile.

When I was pricing out o-ring my head the actual o-ring wasnt bad 3-500 bucks but the shipping was almost the same and then while its out I might as well check the valves and replace valve seals which all added up to more then I wanted to spend at the time.

 

What is this MLS gasket you speak of?

 

I would do it once and just o-ring it if your gonna twin it Kev. You got the head off so you might as well if this is gonna be your race truck. Like Mike said, many, many retorques is the only pain in the rear.... Just my $.02...

 

John, MLS = multi layer steel, this is the type of gasket that we have in 3rd gen.

Jamie, yeah I am going to do the head, just wishfull thinking.. but even with orings you still should do the retorques.

Kevin

 

Yup. I think I ended up doing 4 retorques till things stopped moving on the old 01 and it's still holding strong. I was told the 3rd gens hold together much much better...

 

I wish I would have done a couple more retorques on my truck

 

I did three retorques, the head gasket still let go. When I took off the head, a few studs where loose. I'm trying out the stock head and gasket, and keep the boost under 50psi. Worst comes of this experiment, is I pull the engine and get everything machined up flat and true. Fire rings are the real answer for high boost and heavy NOS applications. Orings are a band aid.

You have to get those orings to be firmly planted on the head gasket cylinder edge. I was only running the whimpy 135ft*lbs ARP, not the 625's. Not saying that the 625's would have fix the problem. 150ft*lbs is alot of grunting. I might be getting old and flabby.

 

My MLS gasket let go at about the 840hp level, on #2 only, with the New Age 625's torqued to 160. This was after about 175 1/4 mile passes. I o-ringed the head and used a modified 12V gasket. It's holding great now, but only time will tell.

Paul

 

How much boost were you usually running? 80lbs?? That's quite a few passes I wish the 2nd gen gasket would hold like that. Like I said I believe Lloyd Mills is still using the MLS and 625's at over 1200hp. That's probably pretty rare but still impressive for the MLS gasket.

 

got the head lifted, but not off tonight... cant quite do it by myself,, darn cp3 is in the way.. went to take it off, and I think one of the bolts are stripped

what next

 

That sucks, I hate it when everything is twice as hard as it should be. Did you manage to get the injector out?