Project Big Blue

Does it come with bolts to use in the torque convertor or do you have to source those yourself?

Pretty stuff...

IDIBRONCO said:

Does it come with bolts to use in the torque convertor or do you have to source those yourself?

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It came with 6 flanged bolts for the torque converter so it could be installed with a 6 hole flexplate or four hole like the IDIT flexplate. Wish every e40d torque converter had bolts instead of studs, much easier to install and to check clearance between the torque converter snout.

That beast hitting the dyno tomorrow still? Lol. Not trying to rush you, just excited to see what it does.

Yep, it’s driving across state lines tomorrow to

So there may be a drive video? And maybe dyno video? Awesome work Wes!

Great build! Wish my engine compartment looked that good!

Progress report. Got the new driveshaft picked up around lunchtime today and got it installed, luckily my measurements were good and it fits perfectly, plenty of room to compressor or extend on the slip joint. This driveshaft is 5” aluminum with billet 1350 ends, and is surprisingly lighter than stock, should be trouble free forever.

Once I got the driveshaft in I topped off the fluids being sure the trans level was perfect and took it out to get some break in miles and tuning. I’ve gotten about a hundred miles on it now and so far very pleased. No leaks to speak of and the new trans and converter is an excellent upgrade. Shifts and lockup are instantaneous and firm but not hard. The speedo needle started bouncing above 60 mph, so I pulled into an O’Reillys and got a new speed sensor and swapped it in. No change. Got the truck back at the shop now going to swap a known good sensor and investigate further.

Thewespaul said:

Yep, it’s driving across state lines tomorrow to

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Why drive it that far? Mexico's closer!

Well got the speedo issue sorted, I pulled the motorcraft sensor out of the shop truck and got it installed and it fixed it right. Down the road from the shop heading back I rolled into the throttle and then something under the hood let go. Coolant everywhere, thought I lost a rad hose or a heater line. Shut it off and coasted into the gate, crawled underneath to find the source of the coolant and was greeted by a corner of the head gasket sticking out of the deck.

Damn the luck, game plan going forward is I’ll run the other truck on the dyno I had scheduled tomorrow morning then I’ll be back at the shop and I can thrash to get the engine back out and get the heads off. When I was building this engine I checked both the block and head deck surface meticulously for straightness and as expected from seeing the condition of the rest of the engine it was well within spec. I try and avoid resurfacing these heads without good reason because of the tight tolerances between the piston and valve in stock form, but I’ll be pulling these heads off and getting them resurfaced for good measure, and torquing the heads a bit more to 150 ft lbs for extra insurance. Really at odds with this failure, I’ve seen twice as much boost on these headgaskets and studs in other trucks with no issues, and the bullnose I’m running on the dyno tomorrow is running about the same boost as this truck but with a stock engine with stock gaskets and bolts with no issues, possibly the gasket didn’t sit down perfectly straight when I set the head on but I checked all that very thoroughly, and have torqued these studs three separate times at different temps to 130 ft lbs. talking to my machinist he thinks a stud may have broken and allowed it to blow the gasket out the back, or that there was a manufacturing issue with the gasket, curious to hear what y’all think on this one. First studded IDI I have ever had a head gasket fail on, but there’s first for everything I guess.

A bit clearer image shows the head gasket failure a bit better, you can see the piece of the fire ring actually sticking out. We are thinking there was an issue with the fire ring which caused it to separate and push the rest of the gasket out from the inside out.

Engine out

That sucks!

Got the engine torn down

What did you find? Studs okay? How's the piston?