Ok since Miko's thread was pretty much thread jacked by 2.4 build failure and o-ringing blocks crap, how bout we continue this conversation here.
First ill start with all the 2.4 failures. Almost everyones motor that has failed has had different failures not choked up to one cause.
Strats broke a rod in half more than likely due to a seized bearing. Not much you could do there whether it was a problem with oil clearances, oil pressure problem, crank journal problems, overtorquing of the rod bolts, who knows. Its too hard to determine at this point without taking measurements of the broken parts and so on.
I believe two were having issues with coolant mixing with the oil. This has nothing to really do with the headgasket sealing. As long as the block was flat, the likely hood of any gasket whether it was a cometic or mazworx of allowing oil past the galleys all the way into the coolant passage is very very unlikely unless something got warped. Again not likely. The likelyhood of coolant mixing into the oil from a sleeved block is from the base of the sleeve itself. Either caused by improper machining of the base of the block, improperly sealed sleeve, or both together. The sleeves come with red loctite to completely smother the bottom of the sleeve just before pressing it into the block. If you dont use this, your asking for problems. The sleeves also have bevels at the bottom to again help seal in the base of the block. So coolant mixing is more than likely coolant leaking through the base of the sleeve into the crankcase. Again our oil galleys are quite seperated from the coolant galleys. You can have a blown headgasket around the cylinder wall causing your cooling system to pressurize and not have oil go into the coolant or coolant into the oil. Most of the time this doesnt happen unless again its overheated and warped or overheated to the point where you have a gasket breakdown which on a metal gasket is not really going to happen.
To those that are getting leaking past the gasket into the cooling system pressurizing it either from a bad gasket seal not enough head clamping force causing head lift and causing the gasket to blow or so on. This can also be caused by a sunken sleeve again due to improper installation.
Now onto o-ringing. There is nothing wrong with o-ringing a block. However each time you dissasemble it you have to replace the o-ring as well as the gasket. This helps in extremely high cylinder pressures more so for boosted engines than n/a. Even the big n/a k series guys dont use o-ring blocks. More this is found on 1000+whp turbo builds where you might get a bit of head lift under the extreme boost and cylinder pressures. The orings prevent the gasket from breaking during lift and prevent pressurizing of the cooling system. It gives you a lot of leway whereas if you just had the gasket and you lift the head even slightly your probably gonna blow the gasket and pressurize the cooling system.
There are two different o-rings used commonly. Copper o-ring which is the most common and again works very effectively. Then there is a stainless steel o-ring which doesnt have to be replaced but requires a recieving groove matched in the head. This crushes the gasket pushing it up into the recieving groove making an even tighter seal. Along with onto the block around the ring. You will see these on very big builds as well.
My take on on the 2.4 failures is not just one thing, its different for everyone and most of it comes down to improper installation. You look at cory's motor and a couple others that are still together rockin and rollin without issues. What did they do differently? For one i believe all of their blocks were mazworx blocks which cost them more but it was done properly. Dont reuse headgaskets when tearing them apart. And double check all your clearances, oil pressure, and so on that will help keep the motor together. It really does come down to assembly. Plain and simple. Hate me if you will but im saying this because its quite obvious.
So lets continue this discussion here.
First ill start with all the 2.4 failures. Almost everyones motor that has failed has had different failures not choked up to one cause.
Strats broke a rod in half more than likely due to a seized bearing. Not much you could do there whether it was a problem with oil clearances, oil pressure problem, crank journal problems, overtorquing of the rod bolts, who knows. Its too hard to determine at this point without taking measurements of the broken parts and so on.
I believe two were having issues with coolant mixing with the oil. This has nothing to really do with the headgasket sealing. As long as the block was flat, the likely hood of any gasket whether it was a cometic or mazworx of allowing oil past the galleys all the way into the coolant passage is very very unlikely unless something got warped. Again not likely. The likelyhood of coolant mixing into the oil from a sleeved block is from the base of the sleeve itself. Either caused by improper machining of the base of the block, improperly sealed sleeve, or both together. The sleeves come with red loctite to completely smother the bottom of the sleeve just before pressing it into the block. If you dont use this, your asking for problems. The sleeves also have bevels at the bottom to again help seal in the base of the block. So coolant mixing is more than likely coolant leaking through the base of the sleeve into the crankcase. Again our oil galleys are quite seperated from the coolant galleys. You can have a blown headgasket around the cylinder wall causing your cooling system to pressurize and not have oil go into the coolant or coolant into the oil. Most of the time this doesnt happen unless again its overheated and warped or overheated to the point where you have a gasket breakdown which on a metal gasket is not really going to happen.
To those that are getting leaking past the gasket into the cooling system pressurizing it either from a bad gasket seal not enough head clamping force causing head lift and causing the gasket to blow or so on. This can also be caused by a sunken sleeve again due to improper installation.
Now onto o-ringing. There is nothing wrong with o-ringing a block. However each time you dissasemble it you have to replace the o-ring as well as the gasket. This helps in extremely high cylinder pressures more so for boosted engines than n/a. Even the big n/a k series guys dont use o-ring blocks. More this is found on 1000+whp turbo builds where you might get a bit of head lift under the extreme boost and cylinder pressures. The orings prevent the gasket from breaking during lift and prevent pressurizing of the cooling system. It gives you a lot of leway whereas if you just had the gasket and you lift the head even slightly your probably gonna blow the gasket and pressurize the cooling system.
There are two different o-rings used commonly. Copper o-ring which is the most common and again works very effectively. Then there is a stainless steel o-ring which doesnt have to be replaced but requires a recieving groove matched in the head. This crushes the gasket pushing it up into the recieving groove making an even tighter seal. Along with onto the block around the ring. You will see these on very big builds as well.
My take on on the 2.4 failures is not just one thing, its different for everyone and most of it comes down to improper installation. You look at cory's motor and a couple others that are still together rockin and rollin without issues. What did they do differently? For one i believe all of their blocks were mazworx blocks which cost them more but it was done properly. Dont reuse headgaskets when tearing them apart. And double check all your clearances, oil pressure, and so on that will help keep the motor together. It really does come down to assembly. Plain and simple. Hate me if you will but im saying this because its quite obvious.
So lets continue this discussion here.
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Originally Posted by BlueRB240 
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