I would say the delete is a placebo. I don't have one and I'm pushing a helluva lot more temps, fuel and air then the vast majority on these boards and I still have my original EGR system that came with my truck since I got it with 20 miles on the odometer(summer of 05) and it has more then 200k on it now.

Also, flat out it's illegal to have the delete kit for a street vehicle. Regardless if you have emissions testing or not. Eventually they will nail you too. I see more and more emissions testing coming into TN as we speak that you would have expected to find out in Cali. So how Cali goes, everyone eventually follows.

 

Like I said, Food For Thought. Ever use a torque plate when building engines? Thats a plate that is bolted down and torqued before boring because it was found that the studs deflected the block enough that if you bored without it the cylinders wouldnt be round when the head was torqued down. With the plate installed, after final installation and torqueing, the cylinders would return to their round shape. In the 60s and 70s it didnt matter much, now, with everything built closer in tolerance its important.

 

So, do you recommend using the stock over ARP?
If what you are saying is happening to the bore, then that would mean some significant Piston and Bore ware at the top of the cylinders. Have you seen that to be the case?

 

Based on his past posts and I've seen nothing to indicate a chance since then, he believes in OEM versus ARP.

As far as I can tell, nothing concrete in his hypothesis other then Ford goes against studs.

He has good "food for thought", but I hadn't seen anything beyond that with regard to his hypothesis.

 

ford told me the erg cooler is some kind of fail safe for the oil cooler and turbo. besides that it would be nice to have the engine light off if i sell the truck and keep my chip. im pretty shur that my gaskets fail because of me not getting the heads checked and maybe for using cheep gaskets.

 

Hey TEX2505,

You mentioned you are making 500+ hp at the tires. What mods did you make to create the power?

 

Uniformly, no. Too much variance in customer driving habits, quality of the block composition. I've installed bolts in vehicles with serious abuse following with no reoccurrance in gasket failures. I've not seen anything to justify stud installation. Anyone has concrete evidence that it permanently, or at least equal to bolt success at stopping gasket failures, I'm all ears. No "I've driven 200k miles and no failures" I want actual measured evidence.

 

is it ok to reuse the arp head studs and if so were do i get the lube for them or is it ok to use oil i run rotella 15-40

 

You might want to qualify that statement.

I have to ask you though, if bolts are good enough to stop head gasket failures, why are you putting in a second set as it is?

Also, what measurements do you have with regard to those no reoccurrance? That's about the same level as gone 200k and no failure based on what you just posted. It's going to be very hard to get that kind of validation on either side of the argument at the level that we are at. Now if we had Ford's money, probably do it. Ford isn't going to bother (and I wonder how much they really tried back in 03) with a 2 gen old engine now.

I can promise you that I can take a totally stock truck, abuse it, and the bolts will go. I know enough about this engine to easily do that. It is a helluva lot harder to do that with studs if installation is done correctly. 500 plus ponies and my studs are still holding. You have had people blow bolts with just stock tuning, which is rated more then what international rated their own engines. Bolts might have held better with the lower engine rating, but not how Ford had it in stock form.

 

Yes, you can reuse ARPs. OEM bolts are single use only.

 

ARPs
64mm non-vgt turbo
155mm^3 injectors
RR
FASS 150/180
Suncoast Rebuild
Spartan Tuning(dyno tuned)

 

I was under the impression that casting sand in the block was the cause for the egr cooler to get plugged up, and fail which in turn caused the oil cooler to fail, but yet ford never included a coolant filter setup to prevent such a event, with that said, i have been against egr recirculation ever since they placed them in 4cyl gassers, if you ever seen what it did to my intake manifold and engine before i had to remove it you would be shocked at the carbon buildup, on the intake valves, intake manifold, etc....., and if the california emmissions come here i will move to another state, and or vote the politicians out of office for voting for such feel good testing that only lines the coffers of the state and nothing else. i just don't see the logic in his post, he already has the delete, so to buy a bullet proof is another $300+ , unless he has a very specific reason for it, i just wanted to see why, cause i wanted to put mine in

 

I've built engines, I've seen the block deflection in the cylinders. It's not a far stretch to visualize the "lump" where the threads are pulling out from the stress of torqueing. Can I show you my experience, nope. Just saying I've never seen anything justifying studs for stock applications.
'

 

but i also rerouted the pcv system to atmosphere

 

You have it reversed. Oil cooler fails which causes the EGR Cooler to fail. Which is why you had a lot of repeat EGR fixes as the oil cooler didn't get fixed the first go around when it should have.


While I agree about emissions testing as they are at this point. Whether you have testing or not, you get caught without emissions equipment, it is a hefty fine and they would be smart to be attachments to VINs that are shown to have that kind of violation which would make it hard to renew ones tags. Which in turn would mean a ticket for that, plus another fine when it shows why it can't be renewed and they check your emissions equipment again.

Make it legal to drive on the road, resale to someone else as a legal street vehicle. Those are just two that would come to my mind. Even if the delete is more then just a placebo.

"Stretch to visualize" sounds an awful lot like speculation to me in this instance. Which sounds like it's more "food for though". It might very well be true, but as long as you are stretching instead of actually visualizing, it's still speculation. It might be very intelligent speculation, but still speculation and something that still goes against the grain with my experience.

Good. You qualified it. I find it strange though that the designers and builders of the engine spec'ed the output less then what Ford raised it to.

At best that would put it in real tight tolerances. If they are such tight tolerances that it doesn't take much to get them out of whack are stock bolts really sufficient enough to stav off issues in that instance or is something with a little more umph required?

Very tough (tight) call.

Although, I would have to say, you actually can show us your experiences. Photos with explanations are wonderful things.