head studs? Whats the best?

[v8klla]

I'm sorry to hear that sir :( We are currently building about 8 different shortblock configurations for stock, let me know if you are interested...

[niterydr]

Motor blew up tonight.. :( weak.. now on to 2.4 I guess

Then you'd have to change your avatar.

Tough luck on the motor.

[turbotalon1g]

sucky dude. 2.4 ftw though. Time to upgrade turbo too!!

[Mike Neal!]

I may just do a 2.3 so I may not have to change the avatar?!? ;) Yeah I want to change the turbo but I may just try to get a new short block in and run this until next year as its already tunned (as of tuesday) :(

[sleepydsm]

Hmm, My coolant overflow dump tube is front of my drivers tire...

I have a Mitsu OEM headgasket, and it works OK for about 30psi.

I have a previous car with a MLS gasket, and it would push coolant. I switched to the OEM, and it was fine! Truely flat surfaces are key.

[santa]

Get your head decked, and block if possible. L19's and a mitsu multi layer head gasket and be done with it. I've been running that setup on my current car for many many miles. All this season I've been over 500awhp and have not pushed a drop of coolant. The cars never ran hot after a long hard pull, and I've been very happy with them(L19's).

[1ViciousGSX]

Simply stated, pushing coolant may be common, but it's not acceptable, and it's not a good thing.

What you have to realize is that what is getting pushed into the coolant are extremely hot gasses which over time will eat away at the head gasket and make it worse, call it a snow ball effect. Some instances will have eroded the block and head in that area if its bad enough.

If the tune is good, then I would suggest better studs than what you have now. If I remember correctly, the basic ARP's are only good to about 30 psi anyway, so get something better like the A1's or ARP L19's. May cost a little more now, but will save you money in the long run.

Also, I wouldn't use Rau's blowing a head gasket as anything negative about the A1 studs, he runs extremely high boost and cylinder pressures on that motor and eventually somethings gonna let go. In most cases 2 to 3 times the boost most DSM'ers run on their street cars.

I have the A1 studs. Is it overkill? Who knows? I don't think so as I plan to run 35-40 psi at some point in the near future. Just one less thing to worry about for me.

[Super Bleeder!!]

I thought i should add that when someone says X headstud is good for Xpsi boost, this is a bit misleading.

What you should be thinking about is the pressure in the cylinder (bmep) which is an actual function of horsepower, as opposed to boost which is relatively meaningless in this case.

[Pushit2.0]

Torque is your cylinder pressure then based on RPM you get horse power. There would need to be a long list of X's to make a list of what is good for what.

~John

[Goat Blower]

ARP's are just fine. I've used them and reused them more than once and have had no problems running 30+ psi. Like someone said, flat surfaces and a decent gasket are key, so is proper torque sequence and general care in putting things back together. From what I've seen on the other board, only the 750whp+ crowd is looking seriously at A1's. I doubt if that applies to many here.