are ARP head studs a necessity if I don't intend to add any horsepower or put the vehicle under consistent heavy loads?

 

no. you can use TTY bolts, and save some money. dunno what a set
of oem head bolts costs..... but you are looking at $450~$500 for
ARP studs.

i was gonna see how much OEM TTY bolts cost for the set, but
i didn't have a part number to get pricing, and google only shows
ARP studs for the motor....

 

No, but the way I see it is that the studs could be thought of as cheap insurance, especially if you are already that deep into the engine. If I am every needing to remove the heads from my truck I will definitely do studs even though I really do not plan to add power and I only tow moderate sized loads (~8000lbs) 2 or three times a month. I guess if you had studs and felt comfortable adding power would be a little more appealing.

 

New cylinder head bolts come with every head gasket set from Ford, along with a standpipe.

 

OK, got some new information today. I was able to contact the Ford mechanic who actually diagnosed the damage (partly) and here is what I found out:

- Major white smoke.
-traced failure to #1 cylinder
- Glow plug also smashed (due to still unknown but sizable object)
- #1 cylinder compression tested 0.
- NOT the first motor in vehicle
- two injectors replaced previously.
- before day of death, vehicle ran great.
- suspects damage to cylinder wall

He recommended a short block with replacement head and injectors. He also said they would gladly do the ARP head studs, EGR delete and still honor the warranty which I thought was interesting.

Unfortunately, the previous owner told him to stop his investigation immediately after the #1 injector was pulled. I wish he could have pulled the head to inspect the cylinder.

At this point, that is what I am going to do. If the cylinder is scarred, I think I am leaning towards the Ford short block for a couple extra thousand over the independent shops (below). But then again, the price still disgusts me. I have spoken with two independent re-builders. One (Asheville) sends remanufactured long block out to me for $5,500 plus shipping. .020 over bore. Core refund if block is "re-buildable".

I also contacted another guy in Michigan who will rebuild my engine:
Pins (NEW)
Rings (NEW)
Bearings (NEW STD OR .10 UNDER)
Gaskets and Seals
Lifters (NEW)
Rockers and Pushrods (NEW OEM FORD) NOT "REMAN"
Cylinder Block (COMPLETELY CLEANED AND MACHINED)
Cylinder Heads: Remanufactured from Ford.
Crankshaft re-ground and micro polished (.STD OR .10 UNDER)
Connecting Rods (RECON'D)
Camshaft (NEW FORD OEM)
Upgraded Complete Gasket set is included
Arp Head studs INCLUDED
NO CORE CHARGE
3 YR/100K warranty (no labor)
Roughly $6K

Hoping the cylinder is good...

 

Heres a quick way to test compression. Do it with the key off or it will try and inject fuel amd start. This way your only cranking.

 

These posts contain some EXTREMELY WISE advice.

Hard to know the exact failure rates on any one particular shop's remanufactured engines, but folks should realize the risks before making their decisions. Thank you both for sharing your "experience based" perspective!

Personally, I would want to get at least 100k miles (or 5 years service) out of the engine if it cost $7k (+) for the repair ..... not just a couple of years of service! Also, if only 1 in 10 (or even 1 in 20) had problems, that would be too great of a risk for me. After all, you can buy good, low mileage, trucks for the low-to-mid $20k range. I realize that there is no guarantee with that, but there are ways to make sure your odds are high that you got a good one.

When a shop is shown to turn out sloppy work, then "let the buyer beware", you are most likely taking an expensive gamble going with them ............... thinking that you will be the lucky one to get a good product.

As far as head gaskets go, there is absolutely NO DOUBT that the OEM gaskets perform well. There is absolutely no doubt that some aftermarket gaskets do not perform well. Again, is it really worth the risk for a few hundred dollars? I don't see how it is. If someone tells you that VR makes the Ford head gaskets I would suggest you ask yourself how much that statement is worth. Maybe they do, who knows. Until it is proven, it is just internet chatter IMO. Even if they do, most company's have multiple quality grades in their range of product. With the history of repeat failures and cracked heads, etc, a person should be asking themselves "How can I ensure that I get the quality of product that will last??".

With these kind of dollars, success is not measured in months or 1 year warranty periods, it is measured in multiple years and a hundred thousand miles (or more) - unless you are just getting it put together just to dump it off on someone .............

 

One thing the private shops don't do that ford does when they reman the blocks is build up the cylinder bores with some type of welding system then rebore them to factory specs ( learned this from some videos that bismic posted in the not too distant past ) and they come with a 2 year unlimited mileage warranty, and they have access to engineering data that I am sure the private sector does not, so I think the extra cost is warranted and if I were gonna go through the time and expense I would want it done right the first time. The remaned short block from ford is like 5500 bucks although you might be able to get them to match autonation white bear ford parts where there price is right at 5000. Here is the link to bismic's post, https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...rd-videos.html

 

The other thing about Ford is that they will take the old core back regardless of damage. No other rebuilder will do that.

 

That is another excellent reason to use a ford reman, that plus hearing some of the horror stories of rebuilds gone bad to include but not limited to Anthony's ( run6.0run ) rebuild issues I think spending a couple grand more and not having to do it twice is worth it to me.

 

Very true...

From what I've seen there are always stipulations on whether or not they'll take your core engine or how much of your core cost you'll get back based on the damage to the engine.

Ford has gone to great lengths to make sure you use Genuine Ford parts by offering a 2 year unlimited mileage warranty and taking back a core engine no matter the damage.

Per the rest, get a Ford reman engine if it comes down to it. I personally don't trust engine builders especially when I hear horror stories about them not honoring their warranty and hanging people out to dry. Do it right the first time with the people who have the engineering data that no one else has and never worry about it again.

 

I actually pulled my engine THREE TIMES!!!!! The first was at 582k mi due to the lifter life (10 were bad). I had to rebuild it again after 130k due to my STUUUUUPIDazz decision to have my cam reworked by a reputable company. I also decided to balance my crankshaft on the second rebuild,,, a local shop SCREWED me and it vibrated like crazy,, so I pulled it again and had the crank rebalanced. I can pull the engine in a couple hours,, so it's not as big if a deal to me as it would be for others. But I also did all this experimenting on MY OWN engine. No way in heck would I make any of those decisions if it was a paying job. But I wanted real world experience personally before I suggest anything to a customer.

 

If your that worried about the warranty(Hey lets face it,it's big bucks)I'd go with Ford you could do a half a million miles in a year,the motor take a dump and you got a new one. How can you beat that?

 

Think about it.


I worked for IBM for several years before moving on to other things. One of the departments I worked in was Vendor Technology. We would design products locally and also spec the same product out to a independent vendor (usually Asian) to see if the Vendor could beat our local price and quality. The vendors almost always did as they did not have the IBM overhead.

Many similar vendors would design competing products that offered more features and as good as or better quality as our IBM systems. I was kind of surprised that many companies still purchased IBM systems at twice the cost for system and service agreements.

Why? Because if Employee of Company A purchased an IBM system and it failed to work properly or have issues, the Employee was protected by: " Hey, it is not my fault, I purchased IBM, the best."

If the Employee purchased an off brand system that failed it could mean his job. (so I am told).

Thus, I understand the allure of taking the low risk road at twice the costs.

So yes, the risks/unknowns seem lower going with Ford, but remember, it was FORD that put these POS engines in their vehicles to begin with. Ford is clearly not perfect when it comes to this product.


Make no mistake, everything presented on this site is "internet chatter".

I was told to absolutely not use heads that had been milled more than 8/1000 of an inch. I did not listen and used heads milled 14/1000 (almost twice the value recommend on this site and almost 3 times the 5/1000 recommend by some). Why? Because my mechanic said he used heads plenty of times milled more than 8/1000 with no problems and that the quality of the machinist's work and the machinist's knowledge of the Ford spec is more important than an arbitrary value such as 8/1000 of an inch. I hope to prove my mechanic right and, through experience, the 8/1000 limit wrong. So far so good.

What I suspect happens is those that have their heads milled 8/1000 and had problems used heads that were actually milled much more than 8/1000 or the heads were milled wrong. Thus one's heads fail and the problem is blamed on too much milling. How does one know what a machinist actually did to a head without independent measurements?

If any head gaskets are not installed properly or are installed with warped heads, the head gaskets are likely to "fail." What is the mechanic likely to say. "I missed up" or "Darn those VR head gaskets I warned you not to use them."

My point is this: Buying a Ford engine may be a lower risk, I do not know. What I am confident is true is just about all Ford OEM parts are manufactured by an outside vendor that puts Ford's name on the product. Not because Ford cannot make a good product, Ford just cannot bet a outside vendors price mainly due to labor costs (i.e. more profit for Ford to use a vendor). And those same vendors can make the same product and sell at half the cost of Ford prices.

All that said, the issue is a difficult one. Every diesel mechanic seems to think all other diesel mechanics are idiots and it is difficult to know who to trust.

The only reason I even suggest Asheville Engines is that I know a mechanic that is a very good 6.0 mechanic that has installed 10 of these engines with zero issues. One with 130,000 miles on it now. That is 10 out of 10 good engines. Such are facts and not guesses.

 

So you and your mechanic are the only guys out of 1000's on here and in ford that supports a milling up .014. So thats 1 out of 1000's "such are facts and not guesses".