Marine Intake

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Singlecab

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My head bolts are victor reinz not mahle. I don’t even think mahle offers head bolts. Anyway, I’m still burning my eyeballs out staring at my phone trying to get set up. Injector harness, coils, coil harness are my hang up items. How to wire it in is still complexing. The factory harness has two wires per injector, but no harness I’ve seen has more than 10. Hot and ground I’m guessing is factory. As for coils do they come all the way from the new pcm?
 

L31MaxExpress

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My head bolts are victor reinz not mahle. I don’t even think mahle offers head bolts. Anyway, I’m still burning my eyeballs out staring at my phone trying to get set up. Injector harness, coils, coil harness are my hang up items. How to wire it in is still complexing. The factory harness has two wires per injector, but no harness I’ve seen has more than 10. Hot and ground I’m guessing is factory. As for coils do they come all the way from the new pcm?
Many of the coil wires come straight from the PCM. There are power and ground for each as well.
 

L31MaxExpress

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My 234-4301 ARP studs and Felpro 1003 head gaskets arrived this afternoon. I have not felt well enough to mess with pulling the heads off yet.
 

L31MaxExpress

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I pulled the driver side header and head off this afternoon. Not much fun. Pistons and cylinder walls look unscathed.

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Also even though I have the ARP head studs; I decided against them. I am putting it back together with L31 replacement Felpro bolts. I have not had an issue using new OEM style bolts in other engines.

When the head came off the tally was 2 broken bolts, 1 stretched bolt that was finger tight but somehow stayed together to remove and 1 broken washer. The two broken bolts were both above the deck and easily un-threaded by hand.
 
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Singlecab

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Man that was a close one. Glad you followed your nose and found it. What do you think about the sealer that comes on the factory type replacements?
 

L31MaxExpress

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Man that was a close one. Glad you followed your nose and found it. What do you think about the sealer that comes on the factory type replacements?
Make sure that the bolts are not ancient and the sealer is still pliable and they work quite well.

I opened one of the Felpro bolt boxes and started checking things. The short lower row of bolts has less thread contact than I feel they should. Will keep those bolts for putting the 350 that came out of the van back together.

Looks like ARP Studs it is. Looking through several threads on speed-talk and a few other places, they tend to pull out of the OEM head bolt holes when torque to 80 ft/lbs. I found instructions that were atleast 10-15 years old from ARP using the same studs made from the same material. The older instructions show 70 ft/lbs with cast iron heads and 65 ft/lbs with aluminum heads. The newer instructions show 80 ft/lbs across the board. I am going to torque the studs to 65 ft/lbs after 60 grit sanding the bottom of the washers and lubricating the top threads and nut on the studs. The late Joe Sherman even warns against going over 65-70 ft/lbs in one of the threads. Seems like he was pulling studs when ARP decided to change the clamping force.
 

Erik the Awful

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I'm trying to remember where I saw it, but I watched a video the other day about bolts and studs pulling out and advising to sand the bottom of the washers to give a more accurate torque reading. It sounds like you're already on it.
 

L31MaxExpress

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I managed to spend about 4-5 hours on it the last two days. Tomorrow is mostly dedicated to this project. The driver side is on with ARP studs torqued to 65 ft/lbs. The valve train is back on amd adjusted. The header is back on. Rinse and repeat on the passenger side tomorrow. Then the marine intake finally goes back on. Fresh oil and filter, then a quick test fire before all the accessories go back on.

I also discovered at 1-1/2 turns preload the GM lifters still have enough travel that the rocker contacts the poly lock when the rocker arm is forced backwards to gauge the remaining travel. It will not contact when it is running because the rocker will not be pushed against its normal travel in a running engine but I wanted to make sure the lifter hydraulics had ample clearence to adjust for heat expansion. I am at about 0.100" preload on a lifter that has 0.220" total travel. LS7s preload to 0.130" from the factory. Factory GM spec say that lifter should have about 0.080" preload, yet they run them at 0.130" in the LS7. Richard Holdener gained 10-15 hp installing 0.100" longer pushrods in a test he made on pushrod length in a LS. Hopefully the added preload makes the cam act larger and trades off some dynamic compression for improved breathing. The previous fast bleed design lifters worked too well and I had 230 psi cranking compression. When I get it back together I will check the cranking compression before I fire it. Hopefully it drops to the 200-210 psi range. I also removed my 1.7/1.5 rocker combination and put my 1.6s on both intake and exhaust making this cam truly as Comp speced it for the old 350 it was ground for.

I also torqued the heads yesterday evening to 65 ft/lbs in 3 passes. I ran through the studs at 65 again this afternoon. I found it odd that none of the nuts moved at all, they were all at 65 ft/lbs, even the center stud that was the first one to hit 65 ft/lbs. These studs either must have some insane clamping force even at 65 ft/lbs or the pre flattened steel rings in the head gasket prevented the gasket from compressing further somehwere under 65 ft/lbs. I know these head gaskets will likely brinelle the heads but IMO that is not a problem since it will hold on to the steel rings keeping the head gaskets in place and sealed.

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L31MaxExpress

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I Permetex PTFE sealed the studs and 60 grit sanded the washers. I let the sealer get a little tacky before I installed the studs. By the time I set the head in place and went to install the longer upper studs it was almost too tacky. Hopefully the sealer sets up well and no coolant leaks. ARP lube on top of the washers, on the under side of the nuts and on the studs. That stuff is nasty! Reminds me of flat tappet cam break-in lube.

The old AC Delco copper plugs were burning so clean, I put them back in too. No signs of carbon build up or overheating on them. I guess I lucked into the right heat range.

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L31MaxExpress

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Hopefully the passenger side is quicker and easier, not having to dodge the steering column and pedals. I am never doing this job in the van again. The 2 hours it takes to pull the engine complete is well worth the effort. If I had my engine stand, floor jack, 12 ton jack stands and cherry picker here the engine would already be in the driveway
 
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