Ah, the joys.......

[lenweiler]

of aluminum heads and fenderwell headers in an early A body. Run in went OK. No nasty noises. Got it up to 175. Steady oil drip out of the rear china rail, head, intake joint. Typical. Water leak stopped at pass side head gasget. Healed itself. Typical.

Now the re-torquing of heads. To do this, the headers have to come off.
To get the headers out, OFF come the collectors and the master cylinder. Re bleed the brakes, and on and so forth. While I'm at it, we may as well recurve the distributor.

Shooting for next weekend.

 

[Guitar Jones]

Are those W5 heads? And is that a Super Victor intake?

 

[Guitar Jones]

What I found best to seal the manifold ends on the W5's is to use grey silicone sealer on the spacer to china wall, I also drilled and pinned the spacers so they wouldn't move, and I used the factory magnum style intake seals (they are metal and rubber) on top of the spacer also drilled to accept the gasket tangs, with silicone sealer on both sides of the gasket. I haven't had any leaks since I've been doing it that way.

How was the fit on that intake? Did you have to do anything else besides relocate the bolt holes?

Oh and BTW, I use ARP head studs and never retorque, no problems yet with the FelPro 1008 gaskets and 12.7:1.

 

[lenweiler]

Thanks for the headsup GJ.
It is a Super Vic, and yes W5's. I found a couple of things amiss with the intake fit. It wasn't the fault of the sealer or the spacers I installed. Didn't look close enough, shall we say. Doesn't matter. I still wanted to see for myself that the roller lifter rivits weren't running interferrance with the inner wall.
Before,

And after

I used cometics. And I was suggested to re-torque them. I'll use the cometics again. I like the design of the "inner compression ring. Ryan opened the combustion chamber, so I would have been using 4.2" bore gasget to seal the head. I figured I'd save compression loss.

 

[Guitar Jones]

I still think retorquing head gaskets is a hold over from the stone age. I just don't see the need for it with todays gasket technology.

 

[rumblefish360]

I say yes to a re-torque. If not just for the piece of mind you'll have. (Vs. the worry of not doing so.)
Engine build has a play in it as well.

 

[lenweiler]

I still think retorquing head gaskets is a hold over from the stone age. I just don't see the need for it with todays gasket technology.

Well, I have no experience with aluminum heads. My torquing proceedures are my own. I use studs, arp lube and torque in 10 lb. increments. Then go around the clock 3 times after I reach final torque. The driver side head leaked before startup. It did "heal itself" after running. My coach, who runs Top Sportsman always retorques his heads. Good enough for me.........

 

[lenweiler]

Finished retorquing ''the offending bank'', and gained 10lbs on the centre headbolt under the valve cover. No gain on the other nine nuts. Header removeal was needless in this case, but like Fish says, ''Peace of mind''.

 

[Guitar Jones]

What ever makes you happy. I'll lose no sleep over not retorquing. I haven't had a problem yet so while you guys are retorquing I'll be racing, or doing something else.