dammit, not again ! haha but tonite i was trying out the AEM on some full throttle 3rd to 4th runs at 16 pounds. i had an A/F of 11.0 and timming set at 20*. the car felt strong almost too strong compared to before the AEM. upon arriving home i popped the hood as always and smelt the radiator overflow... smelled a lil fume-ish so i hit the cap with my fist and out came some little unwanted bubbles.

i was thinking of retorqing the heads but am unsure about how to go about it. now they are set at 75lbs lower and 85lbs top with assembly lube. i have the cometic gaskets with 2 light coats of copper on each side. i also have new ARP 7/16 studs with the stepped washers. i was thinking of going up 10lbs on each. should i just keep torqing or loosen the nuts some then retorque? undo the lower intake or leave it on? i never done this step before and thought i should just to be a lil more on the safe side.

thanks


oh and stock bottom end and holley heads

 

i have been going through the same thing all summer .. i just replaced the cometics last week again, had my heads resurfaced and the block checked ..tourqed the heads down to 110-120
and on sunday the same thing as soon as i reach 20psi , the hose for the overflow bottle blows off......
i dont think retourqing the heads will work , from my experince this year it seams as if the cometic gasket destorts as soon as it gives failure.(meaning preasure in the coolant passage)..

 

ditto on that. man what the hell @#@%^(!@% as soon as it starts running correctly, it breaks oh well no driving for me untill Drag Day in October

 

damn maybe i should leave my orings in and run some graphite gaskets on my motor I was going to go with the mr gasket mls gaskets but this isnt lookin too good, whats up with supras and other imports running mls gaskets from the factory w/o problems like this?!?!

 

You should not have to use copper on the cometics. If your deck and block are straight you have an issue with your tune. I would torque them down to 100 and turn the timing down a degree or two.

 

tried a set with out the copper but decided to go ahead and use it after reading nothing but good about it. tune sucked before from stock ecu but now she is safe, so i thought... block was checked by the shop and found to be good and heads were just plained to square. now to retorque, best way ?

 

I just put a set on the Coupe with two coats of Copper spray. I torqued the 7/16 studs down to 100/90. I torqued the intake to 15pd-ft. No problems to far up to 12# (crosses fingers)

I think that the stock block has a lot to do with the apparent gasket failures. Much as the stock heads haev a thin deck, the stock block isn't terribly strong either and flexs alot at the deck. You 20PSI guys can't runa Cometic IMHO. I think 9333's are better in that situation.

 

I would do one bolt/nut at a time, loosen and tighten and go to the next bolt/nut. Personally I'd ditch the cometics and try the 9333-PT1's. I ran 20 psi all day long with those gaskets on a stock shortblock. But maybe your block is warped, did you used to torque the heads down real hard? My friend used to get stupid and torqued down to like 120 ft lbs, and then the gaskets would blow out really quickly.

 

im using an R302 series block , so thats not it...

as for Turbo_Baer
i just notice somthing , if your running fairly old heads with studs, check to make sure the nuts are not running out of thread on the studs
after looking closely i may have to use 2 washers per head stud inorder to tourqe the heads down..the threads are alittle higher then the head , when visually looking you cant see the problem you got to check it...

 

8548 PT-2 graphite gaskets which are similar to the 9333 gaskets and I've had several 32 psi of boost pulls and haven't hurt one gasket and no leaks . It always seems that the cheap shit lasts over and over. I wonder why some of these companies always try and re-invent the wheel sometimes. Tim Huspen just went through this same crap with the head gaskets leaking after a fresh new set installed and ran on the car.

 

I am a die hard 9333-pt1 fan but my problem is my 4.111 bore on my new motor, block is o-ringed, which gasket to use

 

SCE Titans with a light coat of hylomar.

 

My cometics did the same thing under boost. It would pressurize the cooling system under boost and start blowing out of the overflow. If I just drove around, it would be fine.

Got rid of the cometics and had TEA put a wire ring in the head. Now I am running a 8548 pt2 and it seems to be holding just fine so far.

 

DOWN WITH COMETICS!!!!!

:bobo:

 

WTF i suck at life. i am going to go hide in a cave, ill be back later

 

will those be alright on a street car?

 

I've had them on my car for almost a year with no problems, I even had to take them off once and I reused them, still no problems so I guess I will just mention a few things I did.

I had the cylinder head deck machined to be very smooth, I don't remember the RA number or whatever they call it but I did what cometic recommends.

I made sure everything was extremely clean. I wiped everything down 3-4x with paint thinner basically.

I have 1/2" head studs. I torqued the top to 115 and bottoms to 105 I think. After a week of driving around I retorqued em. That is it.

Trent

 

You have deck or head issues.

 

physical or mental issues :tard:


whatever, its almost october so if she blows she blows. i am done chasing down shit on this car.

 

Trent,

Maybe you could describe how you did the 'Retorque' proceedure for everyone