o-ring or firering

[turbo lcc]

ok. . can one of you help me with the advantages/disadvantages of o-ring and firering a head? approx cost???

 

[JRodgers]

I have installed between 8 and 10 of Haisley's fireing head gaskets in the last four or five months. They seem to work great. The advantage to them is they are well made and the heavy firring/o-ring holds well. They are pretty simple to install and are holding a lot of boost. The total cost for parts and labor is about $1000. Very good stuff. The downsides to it are you have to go with the studs to hold it all together, you have to groove the head and or the block pretty heavily (~. 125 wide by about ~. 033 deep) which makes it difficult to undo if the need or desire should arise later. The tooling or machine setup required to do this properly is expensive. The Haisley gasket and some head studs will cost approx $600 by themselves. You have to make sure that the block and the head are both flat. In fact, you should have the head surfaced while it is off just to make sure it is not warped. I have seen some that can leak pretty badly if there is even a couple of thousanths of warp to the head one way or the other. It is a good system and I would recommend it highly, even though it is pricey. I plan on doing my engine in the very near future, like next week if all goes well.



The wire o-ring and stock gasket will work well also. However, in my opinion it is just a poor mans fix. The o-ring job can be very reliable, but as in all things the results you get will be directly dependant on the care taken in doing it. If I were going to just o-ring and use a stock type gasket, I think I would go ahead and use a set of head studs (again ~$300) because the clamp load afforded by the studs is good insurance angainst lifting the head or blowing gasses past the gasket material. A good o-ring job should cost about a third to half what the firering job does. The biggest difference is in parts. Do you decide to go with studs or not ($300). The labor is pretty much the same for either. To pull the head, cut grooves, put studs in, put it back together, find the parts you dropped under the truck, go to auto parts store a couple of times for stuff you forgot you would need, etc. takes about 10 hours of work if you are really hustling. If you plan on taking the head to get it surfaced, valve job, and hot tank cleaning while it is off, then you have a day there waiting on the machine shop, but still the time off and time on as far as turning wrenches is about 10-12 hours. A first timer should plan on it taking about 15-18 hours, minus all the running around to the store and the machine shop, etc.



Whichever way you go, if done correctly,you should be satisfied with the results. I took apart a head recently to fire ring because someone else's o-ring job was not working as it was supposed to. The grooves that had been cut for the o-rings were out of round, not concentric with the cylingers, and varied in depth around the circumference of the cylinders. There were also gaps of about . 010" at the ends where the wire butted together. My point is, whoever did that kind of job should have never have expected to last past the first burnout, especially with the stock headbolts holding it together.



I hope this helps you decide what to do and you glean some information about what is involved.



Joe

 

[turbo lcc]

That is GREAT information. . Thank you

 

[98slushbox]

Thanks Joe very informational! What about cracks in head? If any should you disguard head? Thanks Jeremy (O1-HO) Merry X-Mas

 

[CumminFast]

What is the typical protrusion of the wire on o-ringing jobs? . 006?

 

[Jim Fulmer]

. 005 on mine!

 

[rubberneck]

mines o-ringed, but i recently helped fire ring a truck. If my head every comes back off, my truck will get the fire ring set up. Very slick very clean. Just makes way too much sense when you see it.

 

[Jim Fulmer]

mines o-ringed, but i recently helped fire ring a truck. If my head every comes back off, my truck will get the fire ring set up. Very slick very clean. Just makes way too much sense when you see it.



My new motor will have this too!



Jim

 

[CumminFast]

I wish I could get mine fire-ringed, but I just got a marine head w/ o-ringing and a protrusion of . 010

 

[DPS]

I run and sell the haisley setup and it works very very well when compared to just wires and bolts. There are even 14mm studs available for 100psi+ applications to ensure against lifting the head.

 

[JRodgers]

Slushbox asked about cracks in the head. In my opinion, it is probably a matter of what you are comfortable with. I have seen a lot of 12v heads with cracks between the injector hole and the valve seats. A lot of those heads have been reused with little problem. It kinda depends how bad the cracks are and whether or not there is leakage past the valve seat. Most I have seen do not appear to be very bad and were resused.



In 24v heads I have not seen any cracks in this area. I suppose the 24v heads are built a little better and are less prone to cracking around the valve seats. Again, if you have cracks it is up to you to decide if it is worth replacing or not. If you have a cracked head, find out what is causing it and fix the problem. Dont try and get around it and perhaps exacerbating the issue.

 

[Snow man]

I just blew my head gasket on dec 10th, I had O rings with a . 015 protrusion,a . 020 over head gasket,and the haisley studds. I upgraded to the fire rings while i had it apart. Very nice system,hopefully it will hold up better. I got 8 months out of the o rings shooting N2O at the truck a few dozen times ,running around 650hp. I put a new head on mine this time,i know it was cracked,and it was out quite a bit,guides worn,etc . Now I have the hardened seats too . I was tempted to go with the 14mm studds,but the downtime of taking the motor out and gettting it done prevented me from doing it,since its a plow truck and was down between storms.

 

[Jim Fulmer]

Sorry to hear about your down time but nice to see you get it back together without missing work.



Jim

 

[HoleshotHolset]

12 second, Twin turbo, 650hp plow truck =



I hope Dad isn't reading this. :-laf



Matt

 

[Snow man]

Jim ,it was down about a week all together, I really wanted to fire ring it so i waited for the tool (thank you Scott / Mass Diesel Performance) . Without him getting the tool to me I could never have done it. I got to stop using N2O ,or get the bigger studds.

Matt, LOL at you. You should see the looks I get when i show up with a car seat,and plow frame to race . I wanted to get back to the track with cooler air and the twins on. Last time I tested with 90 degrees and humid conditions, almost a full tank and no weight reduction at all. I think I got a chance of getting kicked off the track and sneaking into the high 11's now. With twins the truck breathes so much better above 2800,revving very free whereas before with the ungated B1,it was wheezing at 3000RPM.

 

[BillGotthelf]

I'd keep running the nitrous and turn off the propane.