Well, heard back from the dealer today, and they said my oil leak IS a blown headgasket. Im just trying to figure out why it blew with studs and 35 max psi? Any Ideas? And more bad news, he said if I had factory headbolts it would all be under warranty!

 

good news is you can get an upgraded HG for $200 that will work great with your studs. bad news is you will either pay for the R&R or you must do the work yourself

 

if you have any intentions of going farther (which im sure you do) look at it as an oportunity to upgrade to a marine gasket and oring or fire ring the head.

 

Mine blew with 42 pounds and has the same oil leak. Not every truck is the same. Were the holes bottom tapped before putting the studs in? Did you retorque them?

 

Yes sir they have all been re-torqued to 96 ft. lbs. I guess I could have gone higher but I was a little hesitant too. And yes they went in fine, no grinding or tapping. Mopar wants $1250 for parts and labor, I figured I could ring and get a better gasket for under that. What does O-ringing the head generally run? And can most competent machine shops do this or should I send it to Scheid, Haisley or somebody like that? Also, which one are ya'll running, The .010 over or the .020 over? Thanks!

 

.20 marine it will give you roughly a half point compression drop. you should go to 125ft lb. on the studs.

haisley does a great job although every head we had them do was a fire ring job. someone closer to you could surely do the job.

 

After oring my head I wouldn't do it again, I'd fire ring the had and the block. Just my opinion and prefrence. There are many people down in TX that can oring for fire ring. Dont be so quick to ship it off. But to anwser your question its usually about $50 a hole, plus machineing, and you'll probably want the valve guides replaced. I like using the 3rd gen ones. All in all you'd be looking at a little over 400 bucks. Fire ring is a little more and is a more involved. I know there is a guy up here that will actually go to peoples house's/shop's and do the fire ring there so you dont have to trailer your pickup or have them do the work. You could call around and see if anyone is doing it around you. The thichness of the gasket all depends on how much you have machined off the head. The gasket will be about another $110 from a cummins shop, but you'll have to use your stock gasket as a templete and punch a couple holes out. You can also buy them from one of the big names and pay about 200. Hope this helps

 

I run the 10 over marine with several retorques and have had no problems holding 60+ lbs. Some trucks are very different though.

 

gaskets can only lower your compression, milling the head does not raise compression the head is flat to begin with. (however milling the block would) but adding a thicker gasket does lower compression.