So...I spent most of the day making sure my car was ready for the head to go back on. I followed Danno's instructions for his head gasket installation (involves spraying copper gasket spray on the HG), dropped the HG on, dropped the head on, and followed the Clark's garage instructions for the torquing order and specs.

This is where things went bad. I torqued the head nuts in the correct order to 15 ft/lb, then torqued them again in the correct order one 90 degree turn, then again correctly one 90 degree turn. Some of the nuts turned much easier than others. I noticed the HG wasn't seated all the way arround.

So I consulted my handy electronic version of the porsche shop manuals turbo addendum, and I found that there were two torque specs listed. One was under the regular engine torque specs, and it was 14/36/65 ft/lbs (for each torque step). The "modified engine torque specs" were what I found in clark's garage, which was 14/90 deg/ 90 deg.

I went out on a limb and torqued everything to 65 ft lbs in the correct order. What was whacked is that some nuts required and additional 180 degrees or more of turning until they read at 65 ft lbs. The head and gasket looked well seated at this torque.

Questions

-Should I go ahead and loosen all of the head nuts and torque them back down using the 14/36/65 ft/lbs method?

-If I do loosen them, should I loosen them in reverse order from installation (starting at the outside corner and working in)?

TIA...

 

If I was you, I would want to pull the head, clean it off, check the deck and head for square, measure the studs, and put in a brand-new HG.

Loosen from the middle out.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert.

 

The head gasket is brand new (and $135 too). The head was rebuilt while it was off and it was decked (all though the guy at the shop said it was perfectly square). The block deck is perfectly square as far as I could tell. Any other suggestions?

 

What's the chances it could blow up again? J/k

Mine also required a different number of turns to get the same torque... i've been driving it for 2 years like that. So, i would wait until someone else chimes in to be for sure.

 

In my experiences, the best you can do is to clean everything up as much as possible, which it sounds like you did, run thread chasers over and through everything that is applicable to clean the threads, and let the final torque reading of the torque wrench be your guide. As long as it doesn't take an "abnormal" amount of force to turn your fasteners (like if there was interference or drag in the threads) and your torque wrench is in good shape, then the right amount of torque is being applied. I wouldn't worry so much about the number of turns being exactly equal.

 

Putting paint on the end of the head studs is a good way to ensure that the stud doesn't move when you torque the head. Also, some have suggested hitting the lower side of the washers with a punch so that the washer will not rotate when the nut it turned.

 

Ha! I had exactly the same problem. It left me with a nice unusable widefire gasket.

I pulled the head back off the car and scuffed up one side of all the washers. I wasn't about to take a risk that I'd have to tear it all aparty AGAIN.

Use paint on the washers and the studs and don't put any oil on the threads. When you put the head on again, make sure it feels snug before you start to tighten it down again.

My step-dad is an ASE master mechanic. I didn't want to trash my widefire gasket, but he was NOT comfortable leaving it like you have it.

 

Thanks guys! Do I really have to pull the head back off, or can I just untorque the bolts and retorque them? I would much prefer to leave the head on as I already attached the 6 death bolts on the double y to x-over pipe (they weren't nearly as bad to put back on as I bought ratcheting wrenches, but still a PITA) and I believe that the head was torqued on properly, but would rather do it perfectly and make the washers grippier so as to avoid strange discrepencies in torque related to the washers slipping. An other suggestions?

 

How do you know that the headgasket wasn't seated properly?

"Some of the nuts turned much easier than others. "
"What was whacked is that some nuts required and additional 180 degrees or more of turning until they read at 65 ft lbs. "

That may be due to some stripping threads on the nuts or on the stud end in the block. Did you oil the threads and bottom of the nuts with engine-oil? Usually a good idea to get new nuts when doing a headgasket job.

I've found that sanding the bottom of the washers with 80-grit sandpaper works best. You just can't get enough marks to grip with the punch or file-hammering methods.

 

Ribs, did you get one of those all metal head gaskets. If so, they are reusable or so I'm told. Personally, after being where you are I would retorque them to the proper spec(where you're at now) and leave it alone.

 

When installed my new headgasket I torqued it down with the latest specs (XX nm / 90 deg / 90 deg) and also noticed that some of the nuts turned easier. Now 1000 kilometers later @ 1.1 bar it still works perfectly.