Blowing head gasket with Firerings and proper crush on rings?

LAmiller

LAmiller

THE KT-BOUNDARY
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Aug 17, 2006
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We recently put together a truck with a MLS Haisley Firering kit that has .036-.037 deep, .120 wide grooves cut in the block only.
ARP 625s torqued to 160ft lbs.
Also did two hot retorques before beating on it and the first run it puked coolant.

Pulled head today and the head gasket looks like it wasn't sealing at all.
All the rings had between .013-.015 crush.

A few of the ARP 625 nuts were stuck on the studs and turned off with a wrench like the studs were slightly stretched.

Any ideas on whats causing the headgasket failure?

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Lavon
 
Not an expert, but a fire ring with no receiver groove in the head seems like trouble.
 
I've seen that method work well on a 12 valve 2.6 puller here in KY. It had grooves in the block only with just a decked head and good studs and it held for 2 seasons. Truck was well north of 1000 hp. I know folks that have good luck with just cutting the head only on common rails.
 
We have had good luck with just a straight mls gasket at 1500+ but if "I" was going to do firerings it would have a receiver groove in the head.

O-rings however I can see just doing one.
 
The engine already had fire rings in the block so it didn't leave us with many options but work with what was there. With the ring crush being nearly perfect, does that mean it's stretching the studs and lifting the head at high boost?
 
Can you see the overlap on the block where the machine shop surfaced the block prior to cutting the grooves? Had a Similar problem on my brothers truck relaced it 3 times before really finding the problem
 
I went to that same gasket from Haisley only with round groove in both the head and block, but I'm about 99% positive I was ~20 thou crush.

.013 is really very little and even more so if it is a single sided flat grove.

Had zero leakage up to the point of blowing the block.


Likely galling the threads a bit, I always change those ones out.
 
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I see you guys were busy today after I left, here's hoping you get it figured out soon.

:Cheer:
 
I believe haisleys has a 118 ring, we could cut a shallow receiver groove in the head and run the larger ring or would a shallow groove lose its affectiveness?
 
We never cut fire ring grooves in the head, block only. We never have headgasket problems even using stock headbolts. Its like this on all of our race trucks and built street trucks if the engine was rebuilt. Granted they are 12 valves
 
1. Was the block decked before it was cut?

2. Was the cylinder head resurfaced?

3. Was a square cutter or radius cutter used when cutting the fire rings?

Everyone will have a different opinion, but my experience with optimal fire ringing results is to first deck the head and block, use a radius style cutter, cut both the head and block, use a stock head gasket so you can cut the head and the block deeper than if you use a thicker head gasket (@.018 in the block and the head). With the head and block both being surfaced you have a much greater chance of evenly crushing the fire rings with the deepest possible receiver grooves along with evenly crushing the head gasket to seal water jackets.
 
My 3.0 engine and both 2.6 trucks only have grooves in the block. Never any issue. We run copper gaskets and found we need to silicone the water passages to stop the radiator from building pressure. What are you seeing? Is the rings burning out or is it pushing coolant?
 
It just pushed coolant, when idling truck to fill coolant system it would just continually bubble and foam out of the radiator and under high boost it pukes 2gal of coolant quick.

The head and block were surfaced and flat when installed.

The rings are flat bottom groove. The rings look good with .013-015 crush but the head gasket is just gone.

Head gasket crushed to around .056.

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Pretty sure those grooves are too deep if your gasket is that thick. Just about sure the mls I used is .045 crushed. And would fit the symptom.
 
Was yours a standard thickness? Haisleys uses the 020 MLS gasket. If the grooves would be too deep wouldn't it put even more crush on the gasket and not enough on the rings?
 
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I'm not near my notes or the truck but was sure it was just the thicker mls that crushes to .045 rather than the thin mls that crushes to .040. I'll measure it when we get home.

On edit, just pull out a .013 feeler gauge and look at the edge, surely that isn't enough. Mind you my experience with fire rings is pretty limited.
 
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Joesixpack said:
. Mind you my experience with fire rings is pretty limited.
Click to expand...

Im with you, Most our builds are two flat surfaces with good studs, and while we've put multiple trucks together that had firerings in them, I've never had a firering failure that's not an obvious problem to diagnose.
 
Fill the receiver groove and run a normal gasket if the groove is in question already.
 
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