Hold my head down!

48snowman48

48snowman48

Plowboy
Joined
Nov 14, 2008
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What would you guys prefer for a budget build?

Option 1- New gasket, O-rings and head decked, new stock headbolts

Option 2- New headstuds, new gasket, possibly get head decked

Any other options? Ideally, I would like to have o-rings and studs, but I can't spend that much money right now. What do you guys think?

Edit: I know this topic has been around the block a few times, but I DID SEARCH, and found mixed answers. Just wanting to know which would work better for ~roughly~ the same amount of money.
 
Get it o-ringed, use the stock headbolts.

Run it until you can afford studs.
 
Maybe hold out a little longer until you save up more? Do you have a blown headgasket now? Torque down your headbolts now to make it last longer until you can go all the way.
 
Not blown as of yet, but the new 62 is tons of fun! HG probably isn't liking life, though. I am trying to be a little proactive.

Boost is at about 40 lbs right now.
 
I've torqued stock head bolts to 120ftlb + 90*...it's surprising what they hold.
 
62/71/14 from Sheid. I got it from a member on here. I thought about torqing my stock bolts, although they have around 135k on them. A friend of mine broke one off in the block doing this. Maybe he just didn't feel it stretching.
 
48snowman48 said:
What would you guys prefer for a budget build?

Option 1- New gasket, O-rings and head decked, new stock headbolts

Option 2- New headstuds, new gasket, possibly get head decked

Any other options? Ideally, I would like to have o-rings and studs, but I can't spend that much money right now. What do you guys think?

Edit: I know this topic has been around the block a few times, but I DID SEARCH, and found mixed answers. Just wanting to know which would work better for ~roughly~ the same amount of money.
Click to expand...

i dont mean to hijack, but i'm kinda in the same boat. i really need to save till i can just do it all at once, but just outta curiosity...what kind of boost pressures will these two options hold? and what will doin it the right way hold? (12mm studs and orings)? thanks
 
I would probably go with the o-rings and new stock bolts right now. That way you can get them a touch tighter since they haven't been abused yet.
 
My neighbor has been boosting around 55 with a b special with 250000 and stock gasket and bolts. He retorques about every 5000.
 
48snowman48 said:
62/71/14 from Sheid.
Click to expand...

I am running the equivalent of that turbo on my truck. I was more worried about blowing a head gasket on my truck with my 62/65/12 due to the drive pressure. My truck has 340,000+ miles on it and I torqued my stock bolts to 130 ft/lbs and so far is holding fine. Pushing about 45psi with mine.
 
there is a first gen with the p-pump conversion that is running 80 lbs of boost with just good head gasket and arp studs. he works at south east power, i am not sure what chargers he is running but he did out run a friends truck that ran 11.4 with twins. so from what ive seen just good gasket and studs work great!
 
I have beeb running over 50 psi whith a htt 14/64-71 for about a year and no problem going to put twins on soon so putting studs fire rings on right now have it running tomorrow.
 
I'd do o-rings and use the bolts you already have, jmo some probably wouldn't agree but the way I see it there already stretched, just check the torque on em maybe once a week or so
 
I'd go o-rings with stock bolts, and add studs later. If you go studs now with a new gasket, and then o-ring later, you still gotta strip the head and pull it, and then the reverse for install. Twice the work. But I'm lazy.

I ran my 62/71 for 10 months on stock gasket and bolts, just shy of 50 psi. Now running a 64/71 at about the same pressure, so far so good. I'm also running conservative timing, which should help keep the gasket where its supposed to be.
 
With a 62/71 I think the head bolts will be fine along with the other items you mentioned.

The first "fastening efforts" I did consisted of an o-ringed head with bran new stock head bolts torqued down by TNT Diesel similar to the Garmon method or whatever you want to call it (5-ftlb increments up to 130/140 after doing stock method to 90 ft-lbs, or that's close anyway). It help up very well and only extremely high drive (105psi) hurt two of the very small water jacket portions of the gasket and 4000rpm with a setup i'm guessing was capable of 11.80s finally killed it.

Now, having done it with studs I definitely believe they provide a better clamp and with retorques I lost lash indicating they press the o-ring in the gasket fire ring further.

Question is, which do you need. I think stock bolts will be fine and if future plans call for a 2nd turbo or a big single than an upgrade to studs would be my suggestion. Good luck!
 
Right now, I'm just wanting a reliable street truck. Timing is set at 16*, but I would like to leave my options open so that I can find a good setup for me. I think I may try torqing the stock bolts a little tighter and save money for later. It would be nice to do it all at once.
 
I'm currently running stock head everything on my stock timed truck. With the twins I can easily see 55psi. But I'm wanting to add fuel and timing so I'm not sure if they will last. I think you should be fine just using the stock head bolts and torque them good.

-Dustin-
 
I've been thinking about the same thing, I don't have a bigger charger yet but I'm trying to keep the stock gasket in it as long as possible. I was thinking replacing my stock headbolts with studs before anything goes wrong and hopefully that will let it run long enough to afford o-rings whenever my hg goes.
 
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