Wow so this has not got us anywhere. Im planning on doing my head studs this weekened also and i have been debating on pulling the head or doing the bolt by bolt method. Engine only has 8800 miles on it so im pretty sure it should be fine with the gasket but its the aluminum head im worried about. And if i pull the head then i might as well get the head built. Damn a simple $100 part turns into $1000's gotta love it!

 

What a great day I am having with my EVO. I hate EVOs they are money suckers. You buy a part another one shows up and then another then another. I have to spend $3300 on clutch plus cams and cam shafts as well. Today I am pushing it with a 545 bmw and I am far ahead of him and I switch from 3rd to 4th gear and I hear that nice *** grind grrrrrrrrrrrrr. I slow down and I try to duplicate the sound and it happens again it will happen every and each time except when my clutch is fully down and released which sux . But $50 to change head studs is great price in RNR will they warranty there work as well? If the head cracked??

 

Well the S***Y thing is that is how it started for me. Soon after it would just grind nomatter what when shifting normally into 5th. Now i could just let it fall into 5th and it wouldnt do it. Took it for work and it was teh 5th syncro "of course". I have thought about it and if im gonna keep this car and drive it the way i think it should be driven and shift the way i think a car with this nature should be shifted i am going to have to look for some carbon fiber syncros. I found them for the HONDA boys "of course agian" but as for us EVO Men havent been able to find anything yet. Az3ar sorry bro didnt mean to scare you some more about the syncro thing but if it is and you want warranty work you got some dissasembly to do Oh ya IM me later i got that price for you on the Cams.

Chris

 

I have installed head studs in many many mitsubishis, including evos, by using the one bolt at a time method and I have NEVER seen any type of HG failure associated with it, much less any kind of head failure itsself. I am by no means an expert at the pyshics of metals but I would be willing to say if you properly replaced one bolt at a time, barring no existing defects or problems with the headgasket, you should never run into a problem.

Take this one 4g63 I fixed for example. Some dumb *** shop put a head gasket on it and didnt put the washers under the headbolts back in. They just torqued the head bolts down to 80 ft lbs and the heads of the bolts just dug into the alluminum. This thing lasted like 2 years like this through massive amounts of hardcore reaming and abuse. It finally started leaking oil out of the corner of the headgasket, it even still ran perfect and blasted good. It didnt push coolant or anything. I took the valve cover off and went to remove the head and the outer head bolts werent even hand tight, a few of them had even started backing 1/3rd the way back out. I checked the head and to my suprise was realitivly flat so I out a new gasket back on it and it was perfect. The head and the gasket lasted until the new owner blew a piston apart.

If a head can make it through that kind of abuse, I think removing one bolt at a time and replacing it with a stud should be the least of your worries. I think our shop charges 3 hours to do head studs in an evo. All you have to do is remove the valve cover and start replacing one bolt at a time. The only difficult ones are the two centers and the front outer on the pass side and the rear outer on the driver side because the washer gets caught on the valve spring. You just have to angle the bolt away from the spring and lightly pry up on it and it pops right past without a problem. All you need is a good torque wrench and 12mm (fits stock bolts) and 13mm (fits ARP nuts) 12 point sockets.

 

thanks for your input

 

You try calling RRE? You'll be definitely leaving your car in good hands with them. They know all the shortcut install methods and won't charge you for work done if it's not necessary.

 

... yeah, some one with experience on the subject, instead of pure speculation.

 

Always glad to help and share some of my knowledge. I looked up the labor for head studs today, we charge 2.5 hours for head studs only, and an additional 1.0 hour if we are doing a set of cams in the car already. Say at an average of $75 an hour for a specialty shop, you shouldnt be paying any more than about 175, definatly no more than $200.

 

Are you going to run a tap down the old holes once you remove the stock bolts to clean up the threads, or just crank them in until they stop and dig into the new threads on the ARP's?

 

I'm surprise not more of you guys are mentioning RRE. There located in Santa Fe Springs. Like marksae said, Your car will be in good hands. I know cause i use to work there

 

From an aerospace stand point, to "clean up the threads" can (not will) kill the tolerences... the engineers hated anything "re-cut" and would often tag the parts if the cleaning "left the bolts too loose". On the flip side, from the reports I've been given/pics I've seen, I'm pretty sure darkhorse probably is by far the most meticulous engine builder I am aware of.

I'm not condoning the "one at a time method" for everyone... but I will use it on my own car.

 

Im getting ready to do the one at a time method tomorrow morning on my car. Im going to go buy a new Torque wrench right now so i know for a fact that everything is acurate. Ill let you know how it goes tomorrow.

 

For one, you should never be running a tap into any fastener threads in a block, especially a critical one at that. You use a thread chaser/cleaner, big difference there. Most of these motors have 20k miles or less on them at the time the owners are doing this mod and the insides of the motors are usually VERY clean. I HAVE had this happen on older 100k+ mile 1g blocks. Usually the thread chaser kit cleans it up nicely. If your installing a stud into a motor and you run into a point or resistance before it bottoms out, then you have a problem anyway and would require taking the head off at that point. I understand the point you are trying to make here, but you are saying it in such a biased way as to scare everyone into thinking that every head should be removed and every thread chased. Trust me if a problem like that ever arose while putting studs in, I would advise the person accordingly. It sucks being the bearer of bad new sometimes, but people will appreciate it more in the long run if you just told them exactly what was up instead of just covering up a problem and having it turn into a big deal later on.

On a side note, I drove the shop Evo to the Renner Mitsubishi Car Show in Milwauke today. It has a brand new fuel system and some other changes so its not tuned well enough to be giving it stick but I did play with it some and let me tell you, the spool and the charactoristics of this car with our GT35R turbo kit is absolutly amazing....out of this world. In 5th gear cruising down the interstate, the boost climbs over 15 psi by something like 3400 rpm. I didnt take it past that point because I didnt have a laptop to monitor the fuel pressure on the AEM, which is an uncertainty since the system is so new. I kicked it down to 3rd once to get past a car and I swear to god, it seemed like it spooled before I got on the gas and it took off on me way faster than I anticipated. It just blows my mind that a turbo thats made over 600 wheel hp and is capable of more can hit THAT fast. A true testimate to the manifold design and the work of Garret with the new GT wheels.

Well it was a long day, eyelids are getting heavy. Gawkin at the Hooters girls all day was hard work. It paid off though, they conned Eric and I into buying raffle tickets and I won 200 dollar certificate to get my steering wheel leather wrapped. Im gonna definatly have the galant VR-4 wheel redone so that it looks better than new.

Later,
Eric #2

 

gsnt,

This may sound nit picky, but in what order do you install the studs with the "one at a time" method? Torque sequence forward or reverse, or which way has worked out best for you?

 

Work your way from the middle.Only remove one bolt at a time along with the number sequence below ,torque your nuts to 80ft with the moly lube supplied with the headstuds. Hand tighten the studs into the block, and you can give it a couple turns with allen wrench but dont make tight.

This is the order of stud install.


Intake side
^
8--6-1-3-9

10-4-2-5-7
\/
Exhaust Side

Each of those numbers represent a headstud on the head. Just remove and replace one stud at a time, in that number sequence. The arp use standard sized sockets. After you are finished with your last nut go back through with the torque wrench along with the same sequence and recheck each nut to ensure that they are all at 80ft.

Hope that helps some, use evomoto.com and look at there cam install to get an idea of all the torque specs for all the other items attached to the valve cover.