Happy New Year everyone.
Had a nice chat today with my FL marine diesel buddies and gained a ton of insight on head studs and torque. They went as deep as load cells under the nuts data level..
While their bread and butter is 5.9 C power, they were also early pioneers of Dmax marinization, and worked with Curtis H back in the days well before the PPE boat was built. The first ever weleded up dry sump pan still sets on a shelf there. Along with a couple LLY test dummies, that probably last fired in like 08.
When I brought up my head gasket issues, and if they had ever experienced it in the past, the answer was, "that was our main problem." And those were sub 700hp dmax builds back then.
However the best data I got comes from the C platform work and years of trial and error, o-rings, no-rings, and finally multi-layer gaskets and high $ custom studs. We talked bottomed vs 1/4 backed, and re-torqued hot cold, and even after ttied an hour on the dyno, back em off, and run em all down again..
The winning combo at 800, no rings, MLS gaskets, top shelf studs, bottomed out, 3 step normal torque sequence, then one at a time, fully backed off, right straight back to the full 160ftlbs. Years later, they said they seldom see a failure. To which I said, I'll be back shortly with one ready to spin up and test your theory...
The going from O-ringed cyl, back to none has me pondering.. Over past few weeks I've got to see some 15-16L Cats and Detroits apart, and while they share sleeved blocks, the O-rings or not, seems to be an industry secret of why. But main thing I took away from my chat today, usr best studs money can by...
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