about to pull out the fire rings

turbotory

turbotory

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Joined
Dec 13, 2007
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cant get them to seal i have arp studs only have 10,000 miles on them this Will be my 2nd set. can i put stock gaskets over the ring groove in the heads or do i have weld them up?
 
I would pull them off, have them measured. If there is something wrong with them, send them back to the manufacture or who ever did your grooves.
 
Did you get the heads with grooves cut in the from elite or just the kit to do the machine work on your own? If you got the heads from elite I would be talking with them to find out what is going on. But if you just bought the kit from them I would get with your machinest to find out if the heads were cut wrong.
 
just the kit. the 2nd time I had 2 machine shops go over them heads been decked twice now I don't think I can take any more off.
 
Wow I don't know what to tell ya if you had two shops look at them. Was the block checked to see if it was flat? That is about the only other thing I can think as to why they didn't work.
 
I just went thru the same thing, didn't have elite but I had the ATS fire ring kit installed for 2 years on my truck..(supposedly ATS and Elite have the same ring kits)started to puke..since the fire rings are only one time use I called up ATS to order another set of rings and gaskets only to be told they dont make the same rings that I currently had installed in my heads..they have a newer ring thats smaller, since they had issue with the material the rings were being made of back then and corrosion, so I order the new kit and they tell me I have to take ten thousandths off my heads to make this new ring work..so I was like ok we will see when the heads come off if its possible. I get the rings, get the heads to the machine shop and they tell me I cannot take that about off or the heads will not meet spec and in order to remove that ring groove I would have to take of thirty thousandths, which also will not work. 2400.00 later I have a brand new set of heads on my truck.

I did the fire rings as a preventive measure and it ended up costing me big time.

F FIRE RINGS
 
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called elite talked to whomever and they said they had a customer take the fire rings out and installed stock head gaskets with the fire ring groove still in the head. i asked wow did that work out ,they said haven't heard back from him, so is that the ok thing to do?
 
I dont see how that would work, it seems like it wouldn't seal the block to the heads..
 
thats what i thought ,they also said they would have a "tech" call, haven't heard from them yet. maybe its not there fault at all theres so many variables. i just cant afford to keep doing head gaskets on what is so post to be a fail safe system.
 
preaching to the choir..I know your pain..mine was done last week..

I still dont see how that could possibly work.
 
what should i do here start over, send the heads to elite to have them check them. should i even put fire ring back in or try a different brand with new heads. i was planning on a set of compounds but i cant keep gaskets in with a stock 03 turbo.
 
well..thats up to you.

I said the heck with the rings, just made sure the block was perfectly flat and the new heads and coupled that with ARP studs.

Make sure that none of your cylinder walls are cracked too..they can lead to HG failure also.

I havent seen a set of compounds yet that have been anything to write home about power or performance wise... Maybe Shawn or Tyler but hell they are still melting sh!t too..so whats the point? And Nate isnt too far behind them with a single.
 
thats good to know, cheaper to get a single set up anyway. I'm going to tear into it in the next 2 weeks ill keep everyone posted.
 
Fire rings in a 6.0 are the devil. Make sure the surfaces are flat, and use ARP's to clamp them down. Fire rings reduce the available amount of clamping surface. If there is any imperfection in the ring groove, your doomed.
 
The stock MLS gaskets are the only way to go as far as I'm concerned. Both Shawn and I run stock gaskets with ARP studs and haven't been having headgasket issues....we may have had other issues but headgasket failure wasn't one of them.
 
I run stock gaskets with ARP's with no issues. I am not saying it will not happen but so far so good.
 
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