So I reassembled my head and torqued down my head studs today. Got everything back together and realized I had two parts leftover. The two dowels that go between the block and the head. #$%#$%$#^%%$%$###%!!

So to stay techinical. My question is.. Can I remove it apart and will the head gasket still be ok to reuse?

 

You will want to get a new headgasket once it has been torqued down no matter if it has 0 miles or 10,000 miles, it has already been torqued. And 99% chance it wont line up the same since the dowel pins were left out when it was torqued.

 

x2

 

Thanks guys. That's not what I wanted to hear, but I need this thing to be 100% solid.

And now guess what. I broke a stud in the block. @#$#@%%#!! I got it out w/o damaging anything, but damn this is not my weekend for good luck.

 

Sorry to hear that. Good luck getting everything back together.

 

Sounds like your luck was like mine today. Best of luck getting it up and running again.

 

Damn we all had bad luck this weekend. Im assemblying my motor, the head had been on for a while w/o spark plugs. I went to do a compression test and noticed something in cylinder 1. Had to take the head off. I had a #@@#$@$% Walnut in my motor. Gdamn spuirl must have been in the garage. If I see that bstrd Im putting a 9mm in his ***. Well Im so frustrated with this build I just put the head back on and torqued it down with more ft/lb.

 

You ever read a honda tech thread and wonder if you forgot your dowel pins in your freshly built motor? Are they essential?

 

when i did my b20vtec i didnt have the dowel pins in the first time and it was all ****ed up. so i got the dowel pins, arp head studs, and a honda head gasket and shes great now. the honda head gasket has like a strip in it that makes it bow to help when torqueing as opposed to the cometic one i had that just laid flat.

 

It's good we can still come to Honda-Tech and laugh at our misfortunes. I was debating whether to just forget about the dowel pins and running with it, but I don't have experience with exactly how important they are.

Anyway... going to call Golden Eagle in a little bit to see if I can order ONE headstud and a new headgasket. :\

I copper sprayed the gasket too and now my nice perfectly-clean-from-the-machine-shop mating surfaces are gunked up with copper. Wonder if I can find an aluminum friendly copper solvent to clean up the deck/head. Wonder if E85 will get 'er done.

 

Acetone will get the copper spray off nicely. What studs do you need? I have a set of b16 GE studs that have never been torqued, just threaded into a block.

 

Acetone... Cool, Thanks.

I need just one GE head stud for a GSR block. I don't think the B16 ones will work.

I didn't get a chance to call GE today either.... blah.

 

No they won't work. Good luck!