It's been nearly 3 months since I've driven my car and it's time to fix the thing. I have the IP 3mm gasket and ARP studs that were installed correctly with copper spray. I was planning on going back to Honda head bolts but I've read that anything over 16 psi can create head lift, and I'm planning on hitting 500 rwhp.

Now, I have overheated a few times in the past. I remember hitting 240 degrees coolant at one point on the highway before shutting down and coasting to the shoulder. I will be resurfacing my head, and going with another IP 3mm gasket. I also may have too aggressive timing and am running a 12 afr under wot. I also never removed the head to retorque the headstuds after the first few heat cycles.

Here are my questions:

1. Should I stick with my ARP headstuds? If I do, should I overtorque them a bit?

2. How much will resurfacing the head change my compression? I don't want to raise it too much because I want to maintain a safe margin of error since I'll be boosting much more than the 11 psi that I'm running now.

3. It is a PITA to hook my laptop up to my EMS (took me a few hours to shove the damn thing up high enough to get the kick panel back on) but I'll do it if someone would be willing to look at my map and tell me if my tune is just too aggressive for daily driving. As you can see I'm making some pretty sick power and I'm worried that the tune just might be too aggressive.

4. Is retorquing the headstuds important to longevity? Do they really get off that much in the first few heatcycles?

Thanks!

 

Here are my questions:

1. Should I stick with my ARP headstuds? If I do, should I overtorque them a bit?

A) I have no first hand knowledge with this...

2. How much will resurfacing the head change my compression? I don't want to raise it too much because I want to maintain a safe margin of error since I'll be boosting much more than the 11 psi that I'm running now.

A) When i resurfaced my head, the compression was increased, but only minimally. I talked to my tuner and he said that it wouldn't be an issue with the increased compression

3. It is a PITA to hook my laptop up to my EMS (took me a few hours to shove the damn thing up high enough to get the kick panel back on) but I'll do it if someone would be willing to look at my map and tell me if my tune is just too aggressive for daily driving. As you can see I'm making some pretty sick power and I'm worried that the tune just might be too aggressive.

A) I would have a look at it for you and compare it to my own graph! My advice would be to connect a serial cable to the top of the aem, then run it under the carpet to your seat... so anytime you need to work on your car, its easily accessible! I also switch inbetween my serial gauge (excellent tool for checking out vitals of motor) and laptop in 20 secs max...

4. Is retorquing the headstuds important to longevity? Do they really get off that much in the first few heatcycles?

A) I have no first hand experience, as i have had stock oem heatstuds for the past 8k miles with no incident.. (Lots of boost in those miles) But some people say to do it.. if you can break down your motor easily... ( taking my time i can pull the head down to headstuds in about an hour, so i would do it if i had issues again!) I would do it!

Thanks!

 

^one hour! wow! I'm pretty much planning on this being a 12+ hour job since I've never done it before. I do have a personal mechanic who is very familiar with the S2k but I'm trying to save some cash so I have a friend with a shop who does 2jz swaps into 240sx's and whatnot helping me.

Good call on the cable under the carpet. I will definitely do that. I have one of those serial to usb cables which kind of sucks but oh well. I've been putting off doing this for awhile because the last time I took the EMS out it was to splice in a Modifry ECT and I didn't have a crimp tool so I ghetto rigged it with electrical tape only and carefully smashed everything up as far as I could until the kick panel went on

Once I do that I'll upload my map and let anyone take a look at it

Ordering the HG from IP tomorrow - hopefully I'll be able to pull the head in the next week or two and get it machined and ready to go. I'm sick of driving my GF's civic...

Anyone else have any input?

 

I can't answer all your questions but I will to some of them.

Whatever lovefab said about the head lifting after 16psi is crap. He also said he manifold was reliable and look what happened . There are a bunch of us who run 18+ psi with no head lift or anything. Should you change back to OEM bolts, can't really answer that. I've never seen failures in them but I have with improperly installed ARP studs so if your sure they're installed properly keep them.

3. My ems is also a pita to connect to . However, I think we need to see actual A/F numbers rather then just percentages of fuel input and degrees of timing; they don't mean much as all engines are a tad different, plus different injectors, turbo, etc.

 

I'm at 12 afr at wot. Once vtec hits I think it dips down to 11.5 but goes back up to 12 until redline pretty much. My dyno sheet is history as it was on the floorboard of my passenger footwell for awhile and I have a bad leak down there every time it rains (1 solid inch of water fills the footwell) and it was pretty much soaked and ruined.

That's what I remember my afrs being though.

 

Your A/F sounds fine.

 

I know that the a/f isn't too crazy or anything, since 12.4 is supposedly the best place to make power, but something has to be the problem right? The ARP studs were followed to perfect specification: sequence, a snap-on brand torque wrench, and the supplied moly lube to 80 ft. lbs. Copper spray was used too. I only ran the car with the turbo/hg for 2-3 thousand miles in a 8 month period (I barely vtec'd as the power delivery is already pretty intense up to 6k).

Something had to be the reason... I had no heat and kept losing coolant and overheating a bit for a solid month before the car started shooting white smoke out of the exhaust upon startup and having a really hard time cranking up. I then parked it in my driveway and it's been there almost 3 months. My tuner is Turbo Dave at Mainstream Performance - he fabricates full race cars and does insane motor swaps and tunes AEM exclusively there. I know he knows his stuff.

Somebody told me that I should try overtightening the studs to 90 ft. lbs so I might try that. I could go in sequence to 80 ft. lbs. then give each another 10 in sequence.

 

I would check the decks of the block and the head for straightness once you get the head off. Aluminum is easily warped by even one overheat cycle. You can do this with a straightedge and feeler gauges. Ask Inline Pro what the max allowable tolerances are for flatness on both deck surfaces when using their HG.

 

i just had to re torque my head on my 2.4 stroker turbo ....
same problem...arp studs.... cometic hg... torqued down to 85 lbs with the arp moply lube and its was not good i think you loos a certain amount of torque from the wrench if you have an extension... so i was leaking very lil i mean just a few drops in cylinder 4 but it was enuff to make the car hard to start and lots of white smoke too... now i torqued them to 100 lbs fuk it lol

 

^haha 100 ft. lbs! Another person told me they torqued to around 90 or 95 lbs. once. I might think about that for mine too. I DO NOT want this happening again, especially since I plan to boost up to 18 psi (whatever it takes me to get to 500 rwhp).

Thanks for the tip snakeeater, we're going to look at it all once we get my head off. Oh, I think Ya told me the tolerances are .003 in a PM

Edit: Just ordered the gasket from Ya - I can't wait to get this car running again