Well guys its no secret that our trucks commonly blow head gaskets... So after 3 days of extensive research on what coolant to use on my truck after spending a small fortune on 7 gallons of zerex it got me to thinking.

Commonly our trucks blow head gaskets when our EOT are 15 deg +/- from our ECT. This is caused by a clogged oil cooler or a clogged egr cooler. Basic solution was get a bullet proof egr cooler or delete and a sinister coolant filter and stud the heads before even considering a tuner. But who has time/ money to do the heads? I certainly dont...

So here is my theory if we flushed our cooling system with restore then followed that with vc-9 and then back flushed the heater core the oil cooler the block and radiator then flushed all tap water out with distilled water and then installed a coolant filter and filled the cooling system with evens waterless coolant which is a propolyne glycole ( I believe is what its called ) and its my understanding its nitrate and silicate free.

Why i think this would prevent head gasket failure. With back flushing the oil cooler and everything else you are removing all particles from the cooling system then with using the restore you are removing all silicate that cling to the engines internals. fallowing this with vc-9 you are removing all rust and other minerals. Evens is a waterless coolant so you prevent future mineral bild up that water would cause and future goo build up that silicate would cause. There is no pressure because evens is a pressure free coolant being as there is no water. and just for safe measures a coolant filter to catch any sand that was left behind during casting. So in a nut shell your cooling system would be zero pressure and won't clog any of the parts that end up blowing the head gaskets.

I mean with what I just mentioned your EOT and ECT would never get out of range because the coolant would be virtually free of impurities thus preventing any clogs

Am I out of my mind? Is my info not correct? Or am I on to something? Any feed back would be appreciated

 

Sounds great but wouldnt the factory studs still stretch after time which would lead to failure or am i incorrect?

 

I dont know enough about the stretching studs to answer that. To answer that I'd need to find out if they stretch due to heat or pressure weather in the combustion chamber or with in the cooling system and that I don't know hopefully some one with more knowledge can cue in

 

but it seems like if u take care of these problems then it will last a long long time before you would even need to do studs or even doing them one at a time. but this coolant your talking about where do you get it and how much? and is the zerex elc not good enough?

 

That's only part of the problem. Evans is stupid expensive and it's a non pressurized system too, so you have to find a cap that doesn't hold pressure. I'm not a fan and those I know who have used it said they wouldn't use it again.

The main problem comes from the stupid head design. We have 4 bolts per cylinder holding the heads down. Most diesels are 5 or 6. It evens the clamping load. Now add to that the TTY (torque to yield) bolts holding the heads down. A bolt is designed to have a certain "stretch" to it. All bolts stretch. This is how they build a clamping force. Our TTY bolts are designed to be stretch right to the yielding point (for reference, ARP's are designed to go to something like 70% of yield). Yield is essentially the point where the bolt is permanently deformed and can not be used again (thus why we can't re-use stock bolts, and we can re-use ARP's). So what happens is that these bolts are put on, then stretched to their yielding point to get the clamping force necessary.

Now lets add a couple more fun facts: The international VT-365 (the engine the 6.0 is designed off of) was rated by International with 175hp. Ford then took this engine, cranked it up to 325hp, and added emissions devices. So the emissions equipment isn't always the main reason they fail, but it doesn't help. Now take your avg joe who throws on some generic junk tuner with timing all over the board, and cylinder pressure is through the roof. You can see where this is going right?... timing out of whack, heat building up, cylinder pressures way up... and pop goes the headgasket.

Now look at the 6.4's. They share the same heads as the late model 6.0 save for large bolt holes to hold the heads down and I believe valve guides are a hair larger. The 6.4 uses a 2mm larger diameter head bolt. The 6.4 also has compound turbos, a larger common rail fuel system, yet they seem to hold up a lot better than ours.

It's just a crummy design, and unfortunately there isn't much to do to get away from the 4 bolt per cylinder. The 7.3's and the new 6.7's have 6 bolts per cylinder.

A good set of studs, and milling the heads (some even mill the block, which is technically the right way to do it), and good gaskets (OEM gaskets are the best, I've also seen copper used too), and they should be pretty solid for most guys.

 

Okay here's my $.02 so if you don't think with an open mind just stop reading now.

First the head gaskets are not failing. We know the heads "lift" due to the TTY head bolts stretching. THIS causes the coolant to become pressurized and "puke". The heads may lift due to increased cylinder pressures. If you consider the head bolts to be the main cause then you should also consider the following as well. The flatness of the heads, the torquing of the head bolts and the QA of the head gaskets. If any one falls short somehow the failure percentage will increase.

Secondly the EOT/ECT delta of 15* relates ONLY to the clogged oil cooler. It has NOTHING to due with head gaskets. While HG failure may be increased when a oil cooler clogs/fail this happens more in part of a secondary system failure than a primary one.

Third IIRC Ford changed the intervals for flushing the coolant. I'd have to dig up the TSB for the details. IF owners had flushed the coolant at a shorter interval the oil cooler clogging MAY have been avoided. When the oil cooler gets clooged the EGR cooler tends to rupture. This failure IS NOT related to head-gaskets but CAN increase cylinder pressures due to the coolant entering the cylinders.

Fourth The coolant cap would blow off LONG before the heads would lift IF the coolant system was pressurized ABOVE the known coolant system parameters.

My thoughts are tuners cause head gasket failure BEFORE any EGR system problems ever will. Headgasket failures related to EGR system failures are secondary failures. Headgaskets are only as good as the work done to install them. If the heads are not flat, the head bolts torqued correctly or a QA failure of the gaskets will increase the chance of HG failure.

We can't point at just ONE area and say this will fix it. Changing coolant WILL NOT stop a HG failure if the cylinder pressure is increased, etc etc etc....

 

I agree with everything you said HeavyAssault. Well said.

 

Ahh darn haha I thought I was on to something...