3B ARP studs vendors?

[gerg]

Hey so ive been trying to get a set of ARP studs for my 3B and its tuff to find em. Go figure. Anyone come across a good source?
And just to double check the bolt s are 12mm diameter x 1.25 thread x 120mm long?
Thanks
g

 

[Toshi38]

Depending on where you are your local auto place might be able to get them... I know that locally in victoria lordco sells ARP and can order in almost any ARP product...

 

[Tapage]

ARP head studs .. ? planning some sort of nasty compound turbo setup boosting 30 PSI .?

 

[gerg]

Yes Tap and yes they can be ordered most places. The problem is that this is an uncommon kit so, if the sizing is wrong, I am on the hook for the full amount and have Mitsubishi Starion ARP head stud kits x 2. (10 bolts per kit)

ARP number 207-4202.

I had to measure and call ARP to cross reference the 3B bolts. The freaks... erm I mean totally helpful guys, wanted everything converted into inches with fractions. I hope my conversions were right!

266 bucks and a week or more for shipping. Mopac Langley. Ask for Gerrard.

g

 

[gerg]

And yes I blew my head gasket. Again! Weird eh??
Stock torque specs are 87ft lbs. I want to do 100ft lbs with ARPs and MLS gasket. Any objections from anyone who is good at math?
g

 

[Hulsty]

Under what conditions did the head gasket blow? Do you think the cause was related to your setup or another factor?

Increasing the bolt tension do you think there is a possibility of warping the deck of the block?

 

[Toshi38]

I called my buddy... special order but he quoted about 130 per set...

 

[gerg]

Ahh well 130 is cheaper thats for sure. The ARP guys wanted depth of threads in the block as well as if the thread were flush or recessed , head thickness and the bolt measurements. Then they cross referenced it.

Warpage is a concern. I have been reading alot about early 80's supras that blew out HGs and they upped their torque from 58 lbs to 65-82lbs with MLS gaskets, in conjunction with ARP studs which clamp more naturally. This is a huge increase in clamping pressure. No weird side effects were written about and it is a well discussed topic. That being said they didnt have liners, and most people don't boast about their failures. So im not sure what affect this will have.

My other gasket I retorqued 3 separate times over a peroid of 3 months and the bolts do loosen considerably. I think they must have loosend up again a little. I should have retorqued them when I did the cam, and I even thought about it, but as usual I was in a hurry... doh! I have read about some guys who have to re-torque up to 6 times to achieve equilibrium.

Toshi what is your contacts number?

g

 

[RufusTheDufus]

I'm considering switching to ARP head studs on my turbo H for the same reasons you're running into. I have to retorque my head every ~10k miles or I start getting air in the cooling system. (I've learned that the H isn't the best engine to turbo.)

ARP emailed me the same stud measurement sheet. They want a ton of info. But I'm willing to go that route if it means I won't have to retorque the head over and over.

 

[gerg]

I would switch to ARP Rufus. I have been reading about torque scatter and it has a lot to do with thread friction interfering with clamping force. This all translates to inadequate unequal clamping force that will relax over time. ARP has several major advantages; the greatest being extremely accurate clamping force that varies negligibly over time. Also, using 25yr old head bolts is a bad idea no matter how meaty they look. I dont think that boost is the problem necessarily, it just bought the problem to light sooner. g

 

[gerg]

So I thought id let you all know how the new MLS HG and ARP studs worked out. All in all it was pretty fun. My wife has other words to describe it

I did some reading on MLS gaskets and the consencus is a nice smooth flat surface for the metal as it does not like to conform to irregularities. So I had it decked. I asked about the smoothness and the machinest said "I do MLS stuff all the time and its smooth enough".... well more on that later, but i believed him. Im pretty sure now it wasnt smooth enough. Here is a pic. You can see the machining lines quite easily.


Most of the reading I have done state that a roughness average (RA) of 30 is good. To get an idea of that a RA of 12 is often the finish of a bearing surface. Its nice enough that you can see your reflection when you look at it.

 

[gerg]

So I put it all together and cleaned it up with white gas (leaves no residue) and a cloth that dosent shed lint. I threaded all of the bolts in to make sure they were all free and I only had to clean one as it was where the old gasket leaked. I soon noticed that the rocker assembly was pretty tight underneath and I got kinda nrevous looking at it. When I mocked it up on my old motor I soon realized that the bolt weren't going to work.


I had 2 extra studs as I got 20 and only used 18. So I trimed off 8mm from the stud and it looked better, but was still touching. I looked at the meat under the rocker arms and saw that what it was hitting on was a gusset.

 

[gerg]

Here is what it looks like after I ground the gusset a bit and torqued down the nut and washer. It actually worked pretty well. Although, I would have preferred not to have to do all the cutting and grinding.

 

[gerg]

So after talking with my machinist and Dougal about max torque and stuff and cylinder warpage, I torqued the crap out of these things. Cylinder warpage didn't seem to be an issue so much. Alot of the Cummins guys put in larger than stock bolts and have to drill the block which weakens it. That seems to be a major cause of their cylinder warpage.

ARP recommends a max of 112lbs. ARP uses a 75% rating for stretch which is quite conservative as some manufacturers are in the 80s or higher. That is the amount of clamp force the bolt can hold before it permanently stretches. Each bolt is clamping like 16000lbs or something close to that. These studs are reusable.

 

[gerg]

So after torquing it all down with the help of Mainlander, thanks Rod, I was real proud of myself and felt like a big man. ARP recommends not to re torque their bolts and MLS gaskets don't really compress, so lots of people say don't re torque because of them either. So I didn't.

After going for a drive with the family on a nice cold Canadian summer day, I saw a bit of steam burp out from under the hood. I soon smelled that sweet antifreeze smell. I soon felt a cold shiver go down my spine... So I popped the hood a to my surprise... saw nothing. I checked for leaks over the next 2 days and found nothing, but everynow and then I smelled antifreeze...

After a good evening of intraweb reading on MLS gaskets I discovered that many people think they are a pice of $%^& cus the are very hard to get to seal... especially if your head wasn't machined really really smooth. After comparing pics of what smooth looks like and my head I got that distinctive WTF! kind of feeling cus mine is far from smooth.

Many ricer guys complained of coolant leaks out of the side of the HG, and combustion leaks into their coolant system which "push" coolant out into the overflow bottle. So I started up the motor cold and took the rad cap off to watch the coolant and sure enough there was a tiny bubble every few seconds.

I attached a hose to the overflow port on the side of the fill neck on the radiator and ran it to a clear container of new antifreese letting the hose sit just under so I could see it bubble. I took it for a drive while watching the little hose happily bubble away a small but steady stream of sadness into the container.

 

[gerg]

So not knowing what to do, I turned to the intraweb and prayed. I soon found that people really really hate these gaskets and often use a copper spray to get them to seal. Although most MLS manufacturers recommend against this. Interestingly enough Dodge has "gasket spray" as part of the install for their MLS gaskets which is copper. I think when I put on a new high nickle head I will use that stuff.

With out knowing what really to do I went about re torquing the HG hoping it would quiet down the leak. On the first re torque each bolt took pretty much a full quarter turn which kinda blew me away. On the 3rd torque the bubbling stopped when the motor came up to temp, but still did it when it was cold.

After re torquing it for the 4th time tonight, I upped the torque to 118lbs and the bubbling has stopped even when cold. Yippi. Throughout all of this the motor has never run better and starts awesome and is really quite snappy, although I haven't pushed it hard at all.

 

[mainlander]

I've been wondering how things went, went, went.....

So, you think you'll check it again in a week, just to make sure? Maybe over the long weekend or....?

 

[gerg]

Yeah Ill check it again for sure.

Next time ill get the head machined properly. Torque in small increments. Like 10lbs to start and up it by 20lbs till I get to 118. I have read that some engine builders suspect that the metal gaskets warp with too high of jumps as they cant really expand or contract. Get it to temp and let it cool fully and re torque. Re torque then every week until I am convinced its plateaued.
I will also use Permatex copper spray as well.