14mm studs installed

tom00799 · #1 12-16-2007, 10:31 AM

Seems that my original thread has evaporated. Here's the block with 14mm ARP studs installed. If the closed deck and 14mm studs fail, sleeves are next.

longassname · #2 12-16-2007, 10:55 AM

That's a lot of stud

From your description of your past head gasket failures I would guess they were the result of thermal expansion. Aluminum blocks swell more under heat. Your failures sounded like the studs were stretched past yield when really beating on it made the block expand enough to stretch the studs too far. You can prevent that from happening just by using less preload.

kcpaz · #3 01-06-2008, 10:25 PM

what material did you use to close the deck?

sicksubie · #4 01-07-2008, 08:48 AM

What was required to make the 14mm studs work?

tom00799 · #5 01-09-2008, 01:04 PM

To close the deck I used a material manufactured by Belzona. www.belzona.com. It's much better than Devcon and is supposed to have the same expansion and contraction properties as aluminum. If does not work, Darton sleeves are next.

tom00799 · #6 01-09-2008, 01:13 PM

Getting the studs to work first required getting ARP to make them (not cheap). Then I had my local machine shop drill and retap the block to accept the studs. Since I had a set of 11mm studs, and a junk block, the machinist got it together after some trial and error (6.75 hours). Also bought dowells from cobb tuning who sells the 14mm kits for the 2.2 and 2.5. The heads need to be drilled to accomodate the larger studs and dowells.