I blew my motor 3 days ago while street tuning. I went from na itr pistons and my friend put cometic headgasket and gsr arp head studs to lower comp. He torque the headstuds to 80 pounds. Well, my friend was street tuning Crome, car running like a champ, until we hit 8k and boom, big cloud of white smoke cam out of exhaust and the gauge did not go hot at this time. The car died and coolant all over the engine. Is is the tuning or my friend who put cometic head gasket and torque head to 80 pounds? I dont know who to blame . Car was running like a champ when it was na, gsr with itr pistons.Now we cant start car and the crank still turns and no hole on block but coolant everywhere. and on the headgasket. Could the head lift due to mechanic failure or due to tuning? I was only boosting 11psi on my gsr motor with precision sc34 turbo brand new. I have a feeling my gsr block thread is stripped and head lifted. Im going to end up putting my ls block back in and go ls-r

 

did he use ARP assembly lube on the studs, or motor oil?
There is different torque settings depending on which one your using.
Sounds like a lifted HG though for sure- do a compression test first, and see what it shows ya. Then do a leakdown and let us know-
I wouldnt sweat it, id buy a new OEM HG, check the block and head for warpage and go from there-

 

He used the Arp assembly lube

 

Did you check the flatness of the head and block before reassembling the motor? My block was straight within .0015 and my head was out .0025 and I haven't had any problems.

Perhaps something was warped on disassembly?

 

Nothing was warped on head and block, it was machined prior to assembly. I pushed 190 whp all motor with the same block and head and decided to go boost. So mechanic slapped on cometic headgasket and arp headstuds and slap the turbo and we street tune. We didnt experience these problems when it was na for 4k miles. I ran it at the track hard and no problems na.

 

the 80 ft lbs on headstuds wont blow a engine.

what do you mean it blew? like rod through the block...piston melted? or just blown headgasket and lifted head?

id say youre problem is more than likely the cometic gasket. get an oem gasket. or it was a tuning error. i.e too much timing, etc.

 

Yeah, you've got to find out what exactly broke. My engine "blew" doesn't tell anyone anything. Once you find out where the problem is you'll be able to better diagnose why it happened. No sense in guessing now.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mike93eh2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">the 80 ft lbs on headstuds wont blow a engine.

what do you mean it blew? like rod through the block...piston melted? or just blown headgasket and lifted head?

id say youre problem is more than likely the cometic gasket. get an oem gasket. or it was a tuning error. i.e too much timing, etc.</TD></TR></TABLE>

QFT

Its also a possibility that they were not torqued in the correct pattern?
Did you watch him install it? Did he torque them down in a pattern? Did he torque them down to a certain point say 35lbs then up to 80? or did he just do 80 at once?

It sounds like you have a blown headgasket. Unless you ran the motor more after these symptoms started- then you may spin a bearing due to coolant in the oil ect

Like I said, order a new HG, itl be like 60 shipped via majestic honda, and put it back on see what happens. Make sure you verify that the surfaces are true tho-

 

well the head lifted and it looks like head gasket blew. the car wont start tho

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Eklsv-t &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">well the head lifted and it looks like head gasket blew. the car wont start tho</TD></TR></TABLE>

ok this is what you need to do.

get a oem headgasket
make sure your deck and head surfaces are true and flat
properly torque it
and make sure you have a good tuner.

if youre CR is too high, well then rebuild the engine and change the pistons.

you should have no problems after that.

 

80 ft-lbs is a good torque spec for arp's. I've gone to 90 ft-lbs on motors with a step deck an o-rings.

 

The car wont start because the cylinders are probably filled with coolant.Take the plugs out and see if the cylinders have coolant in them.

And no way ur head lifted with ARP's @ 80ftlbs.More than likely it was just the head gasket and tuning.

Are u confident that this tuner knows what hes doing?

 

well my old ls block has wiseco 8.8 on it so I will be using that. Do you guys think it could be the crappy cometic headgasket? I heard stuff about them? I feel comfortable staying with oem

 

We pulled out the plugs and notice coolant on four cylinders. We the mechanic did tell me that the block was a little strip in 2 cylinders. Could it be the stripped thread on block or cometic headgasket? Can tuning blow headgasket?? This guy is an experience tuner and he went to EFI tuning university to study tuning and is certified. He tuned alot of cars so Im pretty sure he knows what was doing&gt; he tuned my old ls vtec turbo setup and it ran like a champ until the turbo oil seals blew


Modified by Eklsv-t at 8:15 PM 3/30/2008

 

Its all good, Im not gonna use gsr block, im using the ls block with low compression. How many pounds to torque arp gsr head studs on ls vtec setup?

 

I heard alot of bad stuff about cometic ,https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=2083018
Its all good im gonna be using oem ls headgasket from honda this time,
We also copper sprayed the cometic headgasket and it blew not even in 1 week

 

cometic is junk. I have always used OEM after my first cometic crapped out a few weekss after install.

 

You're not supposed to copper spray a Cometic gasket, it can make them seal worse.

I've used Cometic and OEM, both worked fine torqued to 75 and running 20+ PSI of boost.

Tuning can blow a head gasket, or worse.

Check your block and deck with a machinists straight-edge.

 

you're not supposed to torque to 80 ft pounds with ARP lube anyways, that spec is for motor oil.

 

The copper spray information is straight off of Cometic's Web site.

 

the head and block was straight per machine shop it was brand new machined. So what is the appropriate torque for arp head studs 75?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Eklsv-t &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">the head and block was straight per machine shop it was brand new machined. So what is the appropriate torque for arp head studs 75?</TD></TR></TABLE>

on my 4g63 and my b18c i always used 78ft/lbs w their lube.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rota92 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Lol @ this thread

Misinformation city!

Cometic is not crap, I have used them on and off with OEM stuff and both did me right. I also used copper spray on the cometic and never had a problem.

It seems to me that you should do more homework before stepping into another setup, take your time and make sure everything is done properly and that you know 100% what is going on. That's the only way to take this mistake and use it as a learning tool.</TD></TR></TABLE>

X2

I've posted this a ton of times but here goes again. I've used Cometics HG for years now on all my builds with and without the copper spray. Boosting 48psi and no problems.

It sound like a tune issue...did you pull any timing out for boost? Or did you leave the NA tune in there and boost on that?

 

im sick of all these bandwagon cometic haters, i run them all the time all my friends and customers have run them 90% of the cars are making 400-750whp at 20-35psi and we have NEVER had a failure... this is on honda's, evo's, supra's etc...

AND we use the damn copper spray which per RMC means makes it seal less!

 

what it comes down to is this..

when it comes to cometic headgaskets there are ALOT of people out there who have had problems with them.

now when it comes to oem honda headgaskets, how many people have you heard about have problems with them?

the question is why use a cometic headgasket when you know for a 100% fact oem will work just fine AND its also half the price of a cometic gasket.

the only reason i can think that people use them is because they have thicker gaskets which can lower your compression ratio. if you needed your compression ratio lower then why didnt you make it lower when you build the engine? unless its a stock engine.

and why even use copper spray? do you seriously think it does anything? i prefer my headgaskets dry but if you want to spray something on your headgasket then you should use hylomar. if you dont know what it is then do some research on it or use it and youll see how it can actually help seal a headgasket or any other gasket.