Blown head gasket? Video

[Barrykearley]

Followed the lotus manual which is torque then angle tighten. Fecking tight as well it was.

[Giniw]

Torque+Angle is supposed to be more precise

[snowrx]

17 hours ago, Techspy said:

 It just seems wrong putting that much torque on something that size. 

Especially for me after one of the stock studs had previously stripped out of the block at 80 ftlbs!  The deep thread repair took a bit of doing.......

[sailorbob]

If you are using ARP head studs then follow the ARP recommendations. The different stud material,  different upper thread size and assembly lubricant all affect the method of torquing. Be aware that there are different versions of the ARP assembly lubricant that require different torque values.

[Techspy]

Thanks. Yep, I got the latest lube with my parts so good to go there.

Timing belt tensioned. Used 130hz like last time. Just waiting on my turbo parts now but discovered a small crack in the turbo exhaust housing. Will post in a new thread.

[Giniw]

(Isn't it 110Hz ?)

[Techspy]

I have seen varied numbers but no real consensus on the blue belt. I know that 90 is too low (slipped a tooth) and 140 is too high (whined). I settled on 130 last time and seemed to have the right amount of twist (approx 90).

[Giniw]

Oh OK, I didn't realize you would use a blue one.

[Techspy]

Back together and test drive complete. Clean exhaust, lots of power and sounds even smoother than before (I think one of my valve adjustments wasn't exactly right from last time). Now to let her cool down, drain the water and put proper coolant in, wire up the audio amp and worst of all, clean the garage

Thanks for all the help/input guys. Didn't think I would have it done for Cars and Cappuccino Sunday!

[Techspy]

Quick update. Seems it was taking longer than usual for all oil etc to burn off the manifold. The next morning I found oil on the garage floor. Turns out the replacement O rings for the cam tower bolt covers from JAE are not the right size. They are too small and the covers bottom out without any compression of the O ring. I changed them with the old set and it took care of the issue.

[PrecisionMike]

On 19/03/2018 at 16:03, Vulcan Grey said:

5188 or the older 518 if you can find it. 

I did not use the torque angle method. I struggled with finding the correct torque.

The Lotus spec change to the torque angle when they went to the taller composite gasket (Goetze) IIRC. I used one back in 2002 and that held up fine, but I think I used the old Lotus spec for torquing. 

Later I used the JAE black gasket and added the ARP studs with fine pitch. That lasted ~6k miles and blew at #4 on the track after losing over a gallon of coolant due to a bad pressure cap on the overflow. I think I torqued that to the old Lotus spec as well.

Then I replaced that with another black gasket, and that lasted exactly 1/2 of a day. I torqued that to the newer spec for the ARB fine pitch studs, which was 100ft-lbf ARP Ultra Torque lube (from Jeff at JAE). But I think that one died due to an overheat due to poor coolant flow out of the back of the head, which was due to a sensor that I had added to measure coolant temp out of the head...

Hi, just for clarification in case of my confusion.....Did you use Loctite 5188 to seal IRON liners? And did it turn out to be reliable.  ?

[Vulcan Grey]

4 hours ago, PrecisionMike said:

Hi, just for clarification in case of my confusion.....Did you use Loctite 5188 to seal IRON liners? And did it turn out to be reliable.  ?

My 1989 SE has aluminum liners, But no I used Hylomar AF to seal the liners. The Loctite 5188 would be too stiff and brittle for cylinder liners IMO.

[PrecisionMike]

On 18/06/2014 at 23:56, red vtec said:

The manual says to remove as one unit, think the one I hav

11 minutes ago, Vulcan Grey said:

My 1989 SE has aluminum liners, But no I used Hylomar AF to seal the liners. The Loctite 5188 would be too stiff and brittle for cylinder liners 

Thankyou for your response. I had been led to believe by Loctite that 5188 was less hard / brittle than the 572 that lotus recommended in 1992. I'm pulling my hair out.😁

 

[drdoom]

Most up to date bulletin from Lotus specifies Loctite 572 for liners, both early or later engines. 518 is, if I recall correctly, a zero clearance sealant for sealing finely surfaced component joints such as cam carriers to head on the 9xx series engines. It's been posted that the stuff, and others of the same ilk, are somewhat inclined to perish on the shelf so I plan to seek the freshest possible when it's time to assemble my next engine.

Cheers