Engine/Transmission (1994 - 1998) Finally lost the headgasket...

[DBraunig]

playing around after work tonight with my new Snow III system :-laf. I had let the truck run for 30 minutes to warm up and then drove about 10 miles before i started "tuning". I got home and had a radiator full of oil



I figure i have been lucky anyway, 2 hard years at 50+ psi and about 100 passes down the dragstrips have finally caught up with my stock head gasket and bolts. I thought the cylinders looked ok for 197K, the picture is #6.



I'll have the head checked/decked/oringed. I've had a set of 12mm studs and some 60lb springs in the toolbox since last summer i can finally use. It sure was running good when the heater went cold



Dave

 

[Jim Fulmer]

Dave, if you get another chance to snap some shots, get some over the top of the pistons! I'd like to look at the spray pattern. You can E-mail them to me.



-- email address removed --



Jim

 

[JGK]

Heck, post them here for all of us to see!



-Jay

 

[DBraunig]

These are two different angles on #5 cylinder. Currently running DDP4's @ 20. 5*



Dave

 

[DBraunig]

This is two different angles on #1 after wiped off with a dry shop towel, same specs as above. The water/meth got put on saturday. A couple easy runs on saturday and then one hard 12-15 second blast on monday night that took the head gasket. The #5 looks like my timing is close, right at the edge. #1 after i wiped it off looks like too much timing. which pattern do i believe here?



I talked to the machine shop today. Nice bunch of local guys with a good rep for diesel work. Said 1st they would check the head and deck it, get it to . 001 straight, then they use an . 041 wire with . 010 protusion. Sounded like what i wanted to hear so dad took it on over, thanks dad. Once he lets me know how much he wants to deck it i should be able to pick the right gasket.



Any tips/tricks here will be appreciated... ... 1st time is tuition... ... ... 2nd time is punishment :-laf



dave

 

[Signal73]

That looks similar to mine with DDP 4's.....

 

[Forrest Nearing]

I think . 010" is on the high side, but I'm pretty sure that's what Jim's running on his head, and it's obviously holding up to a lot! I think mine's at . 008" which is fine by me because we didn't have a marine gasket avail when I put mine on.



when you tap the block, just take it nice and slow and careful. install the studs finger tight, don't put any torque on them!



I went to ARP specs on torque for initial fireup, initial retorque (after the first heat cycle) and then again after maybe 10-20 heat cycles... stock injectors were helping me keep cylidner pressures down. when I put the DDP4's back in, I took the torque up to 120ftlbs.



I would recomend going to 96-100ish on your initial torque and maybe your first retorque after the first heat cycle. then step up to 120. remember, when you step up in torque, you MUST do the fasteners in sequence. if you're retorquing to the same value, you can line torque (faster)

This is two different angles on #1 after wiped off with a dry shop towel, same specs as above. The water/meth got put on saturday. A couple easy runs on saturday and then one hard 12-15 second blast on monday night that took the head gasket. The #5 looks like my timing is close, right at the edge. #1 after i wiped it off looks like too much timing. which pattern do i believe here?



I talked to the machine shop today. Nice bunch of local guys with a good rep for diesel work. Said 1st they would check the head and deck it, get it to . 001 straight, then they use an . 041 wire with . 010 protusion. Sounded like what i wanted to hear so dad took it on over, thanks dad. Once he lets me know how much he wants to deck it i should be able to pick the right gasket.



Any tips/tricks here will be appreciated... ... 1st time is tuition... ... ... 2nd time is punishment :-laf



dave

 

[Jim Fulmer]

On the piston pic your timing is at the edge and I would go anymore, that's not much better than the 370's that are in my readers rigs with 17. 5 degrees. If you looked at that with the Industrial Injection EDM's you wouldn't see anything on the edge even up to 25 degrees... ..... yes I have pics of that too.



No one believed me in the past, just wanted to hammer I. I. saying it wasn't worth the few hundred extra dollars... ..... I proved my point again! Nothing against you Dave, if I had a set of them I would try them also. Are they better than 370's, without a doubt!



One the head what I was saying to Dave is Cummins specs are . 010 end to end for flatness, mine is less than . 002 and then had to take off . 008 to get it there, nothing wrong with . 041 wire as it's the common size used. Mine is an . 051 wire with . 018 protrusion which is allot and it takes some finessing on the re-torques but it holds really good.



Jim

 

[Jim Fulmer]

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370's with 17. 5 degrees timing



[/IMG]#ad




EDM's with 24 degrees



[/IMG]#ad




The Bigger Bowl



Jim

 

[Signal73]

Interesting writeup:



DDP vs 435's

 

[Forrest Nearing]

dangit Jim, I was trying to buy his dragon flows off of him!



tell ya what, I'll trade you my 4's for your DF's, you can ditch the 370's and try something else out for your "big sticks"! you know you want to!

 

[Jim Fulmer]

dangit Jim, I was trying to buy his dragon flows off of him!



tell ya what, I'll trade you my 4's for your DF's, you can ditch the 370's and try something else out for your "big sticks"! you know you want to!

Your so dang funny! That's not much of a trade in my book, also his injectors are Dragon Fly's, there not built like mine, simular but not as big..... secret stuff. I know of another set out there from them that are completely different, like nothing that has ever been done.



Jim

 

[DBraunig]

I had planned on swapping back and forth from the DDP's to the Dragons this spring at the dragstrip and see which netted the best results. There is a difference from the driver seat between the two. I still will once i get this headgasket issue buttoned back up. I actually bought a boroscope from snap on a couple weeks ago so i could peek through #1 and check the pattern on both the injectors.



Jim, i pulled the invoice from II and it says "Baby Dragon Flows", is that slang for Dragon Fly's? If thats the case, then I am glad Forrest and I never traded out, I told him they were Dragon Flows and thats what he would have been expecting. I took some pictures tonight of both injectors side by side to show a visual comparsion. Sorry about the pic's, i got more money in the truck than the camera



1st pic is Industrial Injection tip



2nd pic is DDP4 tip



3rd pic is II left and DDP4 right



Dave

 

[Jim Fulmer]

Baby Dragon flows and Dragon fly's are the same. Yours have the rock catchers EDM'd out like mine, the difference is inside and (I think) my hole size is a tiny bit bigger.



Jim

 

[bgilbert]

Yours have the rock catchers EDM'd out like mine.

I wondered what they call that. Why isn't ddp doing that? Is that ddp tip a standard Bosch tip, it looks more like a sac hole nozzle ?

 

[CToney]

I don't know how your headgasket lasted so long. I had 15. 5 degrees of timing and only 35 psi a couple times before mine blew the first time. Brought the boost done a bit and it blew again this time no oil in rad. What a mess!! Consider yourself lucky that it held that long. I've heard of lots of gaskets failing with low miles and relatively low boost and timing.

 

[CumminsPower98]

That is impressive. Mine let go at 247k with 16 deg. timing and a max of 38 psi a few short times. Not really sure when it let go as I was doing a lot of sustained high boost towing in wind and subzero temps that day. I was lucky that it was just compression into the water jacket leak and was able to drive 1200 miles home keeping the boost below 20 without any trouble. I'm still paranoid even with studs now.

 

[DBraunig]

I was surprised to have gotten away with it for so long too. But, better here 5 miles from home, than IRP or Bowling green or wherever else hours away. I'd like to think the sps charger and ats manifold bought me some time, and i always get up to temp before i am hard on it. I knew it was coming, just didn't know when :-laf



Dave