I've been thinking about it, and the cylinder pressurizing the coolant lines is probably what made the water lines to the OFH blow. Hardly anyone ever replaces those lines so they were the weakest link.

I never thought about it like that Nick, thats a good theory.
I found a shop down here in SD that a few of my other DSM buddies went through that will do the resurface, clean, 3 angle valve job, & bronze valve guides for under $200 and the turn around time is 3 days. Every place else I called wanted over $350 for it... Its looking like the last week in April or first week in May the car will have the fresh head on it and ready to go back on the dyno, only this time it won't be pissing itself like Honda Robert said. Maybe I'll get some different spark plug wires since my Hotwires suck too? haha.

I wish I could work at Road Race just so I could hear the shit Honda talks about every car that rolls up to that place. It cracks me up.

Your wires were fine, it was the grounding wires you put on them haha.

The Nology hotwires come with the grounds already in them. I understand the claims that Nology makes are B.S. but I didn't pay a dime for the hot wires, they were given to me new from a DSM friend that didn't want them. I'm going to bring a set of Magnacores up to RRE with me and after Sams done with the tune I'm going to throw on the Magnacores and we're going to see if either make a difference.

Got some news, and its good news which is even better. I pulled apart the 7-bolt head that Sam loaned me to build, with the exception that I give him the one thats on my car back. None of the exhaust mani studs or the two intake mani studs were broken either... I got my engnbldr valves, bronze valve guides, & revised lifters in today and immediately took the bare head to the machine shop. For $200 its getting all the new bronze valve guides pressed in, a 3 angle valve job, decked and cleaned... pretty DAMN good deal. The valve springs that will be going into the head are Evo IX OEM beehives, but I'm still working on getting a set of Evo rockers too if not I'll just run my stocker 2g's.

I got the VR-Speed short route FMIC kit in the mail yesterday and I'll be getting all the piping taken down to my friends place to get powder coated matte black tomorrow. I also got my AEM 3.5 bar MAP sensor in so I can log ACTUAL boost in link instead of going off my boostest.

The head work should take about 3 days so more updates to come! The car is still on its wheels and a good DD I just can't go into boost, the upside of all this is I'm getting WAY better gas mileage babying it everywhere. I'm shooting for the last week in April to get the built head and leak free FMIC installed on the car. Then it would be back up to the dyno the first weekend in May if Sam doesn't already have plans...

Updates, for those who were interested in the first place... *Read above if you need caught up to this point*

The head Sam gave me after the long night on the dyno ended up having a crack on the intake side, just over the #2 runner. The machine shop told me about it and I verified the crack through a few guys I know that work in the NDI lab on MCAS Miramar, they check for cracks on the structure of aircraft. They just used penetrating die so I'm not sure how deep into the head it goes but any crack is a bad one... Heres a few pictures.





I happened to have another 7 bolt head in my closet that was missing ONE cam cap, since Sams head was trashed I cannibalized a cam cap over and had the machine shop line hone it. I also dropped off Evo IX springs/retainers, engnbldr SS valves/bronze valve guides/revised lifters, & Supertech valve seals to get installed. The shop cleaned it, resurfaced it, 3 angle valve job, pressed in the bronze valve guides, line honed the cam cap, and put everything together for just $80. Long story short the owner of the machine shop saw me show up in uniform and wanted a set of steel toed boots since his were worn, I bought him a pair and he gave me my built head in return.

I also had that boost leak at the FMIC core so to fix that it was time to upgrade, short route piping/2.5" piping/bigger core. It came polished so I had it PC'd matte black to keep it stock appearing as much as possible.

It looks like Kris (banishedmunk) and I have a long weekend ahead of us, hopefully the car will be ready for the dyno May 7th...

-VR-Speed FMIC and matte black PC'd short route piping
-FP 4" intake
-AEM 3.5 bar MAP sensor
-ExtremePSI head gasket set
-ARP head studs





And of course the built head...







Hope to be up in LA at RRE Friday if Sam doesn't already have someone scheduled to go on the dyno, maybe see a few of you there?

your car is bad ass, props on all the time, hard work, and money building it.

we have a good drive ahead of us today and then tomorrow its head time for corey. head swap that is and maybe a little tender love and care. either way there will be no more lifting once we are done with it. are you ready to learn corey?

tender love and care....

tender love and care is always need when dealing with the head

The DSM is going up on RRE's dyno once again to get Sam to tune it, hopefully this time it won't start acting up. There are a few more goodies on it this time than there were the last so we'll see what it does to the wheels, Friday August 20th is when I'm headed up there so if you want to come hang out everyones welcome.
Maybe we can order pizza this time since it seems like a 4am event the last few times I've been up there.

I'll probably be there if nothing else comes up. I wanna see what that little monster can REALLY put down haha

I wanna see this hta 68 is a bad ass turbo plus on E85 its gonna be powerfull