I have noticed several threads now where people are having issues with an oil leak between the block and head. I personally experienced this problem on my own car. Chad from CBRD talked me out of getting the O'rings because he had issues with coolant and oil mixing on a few customer cars. I never had an issue with this before when I removed the head to build the bottom end, as soon as i installed my head after getting it back from buschur my car would literally spray oil from the part of the head nearest to the tranny. You could see the splatter on the IC piping.

I used a brand new gasket and brand new headstuds from ARP when I installed it. Also now after taking it back apart I had a well known local machine shop check both surfaces. The block and head were both perfectly true and I even had them check the finish on both and the roughness averages were both in spec. Im not sure what could have caused this but it was bad, i was actually seeing trace amounts of oil making it all the way to the windisheild

The reason i am posting this is because I have seen a few similar threads in the advanced forum but that gets no traffic and nothing conclusive has come from any of them. I just want to get peoples thoughts on this as well as here from anyone else who is having this problem.

 

David,

we only had issues with the evo IX heads, never the evo 8 heads....

the 8 and 9 have different layers of gasket material (the 8 being thinner) which allows the ring to crush easier..

we tried L19's torqued to well over 100 to no avail, thought we had a bad torque wrench, bought a very expensive one... digital, vibrates and beeps...

no avail... so we decided to skip the o-rings now, and just run them normal (two of them we had the SS rings pulled and had copper inserted, and those worked well also).. When we pulled one set off we did notice that the rings were picking up out of the block a little where the gap is between them, and they are cut straight, not overlapped...

now keep in mind, i dont build cylinder heads myself LOL!

just some food for thought, David B said he hadn't seen the issue, until a customer car came in, which he checked with his torque wrench and it was torqued properly, not sure what he found on that particular car...

Just food for thought....

CB

 

We have also only seen this problem with the IX heads i have even talked to other vendors/shops about this to see if they had problems like this but no one would say . I first noticed this with our CNC program and thought it was our fault but then i ran into the same problem on a few stock nine heads. I finally torqued a IX head to a torque plate and was shocked ,the thing moves around quite a bit i even had one head where the valves actually pitched off the valve seat. What we do is back the head stud torque down to 65ft lbs and heat the car up to operating temp(No Boost!!!) and then torque the head studs to spec while hot but if your gasket is already leaking you may have to replace it.

 

Just to clear things up. I have a IX, OEM headgasket always used, ARP studs tq'd in steps of 35, 50,100. I never got O'rings. I would never consider re-using it but the headgasket I removed after having the leak is in perfect condition. I will try and post pics of that soon.

 

I have about 12k on mine and havent had an oil leak. Sorry to hear about that.


edit***
I have an evo 8 though....

 

you have an evo 8, that is the point, the discussion is the evo IX hee he,

CB

 

I know that Chad! I was just saying! Geez! lol

**sorry OP**

Im surfing the net on my blackberry so think i was reading the thread too quick.

 

i was just busting ur chops DJ, havent seen you in awhile HA!

cb

 

i know im bumping a really old thread but ive been having the same prob and thought it was my headstuds needed to be torqued down, but i see its a common prob so i searched here and found this same prob buschur motor and head with stock head gasket, o ringed head and arp's ive got a good amount of oil coming out of that corner by the turbo next to the tranny that it runs down my block and tranny and has lil drips hanging and small oil spots here and there on the ground.... what do i do to solve this prob?

 

How about you call Buschur in the morning and ask him as he will be able to help you

 

first time im hearing about this, let us know how you make out! i had 0-ring done on my built ix long block it has about 4k on the motor and it doesn't leak a drop of oil, i just checked to make sure..


John

 

I have a ix that I just finished building OEM hg L19 no o-ring torqued to 100. Putting down 525whp for 2k miles now and no leaks. Keep us updated on what u find

 

Unfortunately we just had it happen on a non o-ringed block and an Evo 8 head with arp head studs that lasted 80k miles with stock HG as well. Just swapped his EM from a Megan tubular to a MAP tubular EM w/ stock block and 05 10.5 turbo. Fixed the exhaust leak from the Megan but now caused a serious oil leak from the head/block meeting point under the 2 left exhaust tubes while facing the front of the car. What could be the issue here all advice and recommendations are welcome. Before the MAP EM swap it put down 370/398 on E85 @ 31.3 psi. We haven't had time to do compression test yet but the rings are still good and there is no leaking coolant into the oil and or oil in the coolant over flow. We don't feel like pulling the head but will before the next tune is done if necessary. One pull to 29psi decided to shoot oil out the head/block area after the EM swap is what happened. Only in boost as well.

 

Talk about off topic revival...

Only thing that comes to mind is did you happen to strip out one of the bolts in the head? Or did you not torque the oil feed line on the turbo? Unless you split the head from the block i doubt yoh could cause a leak on a solid setup. I never have.