Cylinder bolts not studs? Was pistons and rings oh my.

[jleyton]

Hi Bob, where did you source the bolts from, sounds like an interesting plan?

HNY by the way

Ditto from me too - to both question and HNY

If the bolts are as good as your VCs then they'll be great

Cheers

Julian

[Motorsport Micky]

Hic...sorry to be late on this thread but holidays and a wife who threatened that if I went on the forum it would involve a disproportionate amount of pain and suffering on my part prevented it.

Only to relate what I did on my engine was

A) drilled out the head stud holes by 1/64 th
B) reused existing studs and bolts
C) coated the studs with copper slip
D) drilled out the blind holes in the head to block through the gasket
E) refitted the cylinder head torquing the studs to 65lb, long bolts to 55lb and short bolts to 35 lb

Left alone for 10 years driven nearly 20,000 miles no head gasket problems. Heads are retorqued every 2 years when the antifreeze is changed, when the engine is dry the nuts or bolts are backed off one flat and then retorqued as per manual.

The inlet manifold has been skimmed to match the head skims ( I hope), despite which it has the traditional inlet water weep into the V, this winters next project along with a header tank...please god do not restart the thread on this.

Micky

[Per]

Quick comment re your engine -- before any bock cleaning look down rear of block water areas to rear of no 4 & 8 cylinders and dig out any debris that gets trapped in this area,a long thin screwdriver is good with an air jet to blow out debris ,the reason for this is chemical cleaning dosnt allways penetrate this constricted compacted area so future overheating can result.The last rebuild I did I removed the equivalent of a bag of sugar from my block ,

Good tip indeed. With other engines which have had "known issues" with overheating I have found that the single most effective action has been to remove the core plugs etc and dig out the silt. Interestingly these same engines have never given the same problems in cars sold new here. And the reason is that 50% anti freeze is used year round by everybody, so corrosion protection has been ok from day one onwards. Btw if the engine runs hot at idle and dawdling but ok at motorway speeds you usually have an air flow issue. If ok at idle or dawdling but runs hot at motorway speeds you have a water flow issue. If hot under all conditions I would start looking into water flow.

[V Mad]

I found that the condition of the waterways behind the tranfers plates on the end of the heads is a good indicator. One set of heads I worked on were almost copletely clogged with a waxy substance mixed with corrosion. In that case its definitely advisable to remove all core plugs and clean out.