lmao, you're worse than some of the n00bs with the paranoya.
Its less than a mm thick, I'll bet youll be fine.

And nice progress. When is your deadline?

 

Last weekend of January is the first race weekend. I'd like to drive it to work a few days the week prior so I don't endure any little issues on the side of the highway, far from home.

 

I also don't think my head torque is even, I need a new torque wrench.

 

If you wanted to maintain perfect belt alignment the solution is to run a crank pulley boss from a 96+ motor, which were a tad shorter to accommodate the added thickness of the wheel.
Part no B6BF-11-400A.

 

real men have snap-on techwrenches.
http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item....re&dir=catalog

 

^That thing is flat out boss. I've used one a few times and they are worth the money.

 

If you want consistant acurate torque numbers, get one of these:

 

Am I ok to loosen the headstuds and try again or will i need to replace the head-gasket?

 

I have over 10 Snap-On Trq wrenches


at work

 

You'll be fine, just don't lift the head off if you copper sprayed it.

 

Once you get that torque bar, you can try to tighten them all to spec. If they don't turn, they're above spec, if they turn they were below spec. If you shot for mid-range with your clicky torque wrench, I'd say you're ok. If any of this has caused issues with the head gasket, I'd be confident in saying that something else would fail before your head gasket. Leave it.

Oh, and with a bar torque wrench like I pictured, you can test your clicky wrench. Tighten a bolt in a vice with the bar wrench to head stud torque, and the clicky wrench should click without tightening it anymore. This only works for a torque wrench that's over tightening something. Search online for various home testing methods. I believe the most reliable has you hooking one torque wrench directly to the other to see where it's clicking.

 

Yeah, time for a old-school torquey wrenchy.

 

You can test and calibrate a torque wrench with a bench vise, a large weight, and a piece of rope.

 

My current coolant reroute set-up changed a little bit and now the return pipe is the highest point in the system. What does this mean in terms of flow and the possibility for air bubbles? Do I need to pick-up a swirl-pot?

 

You didn't design that out of your ballerest of baller reroute setup?

 

Or have some sort of bleeder in the highest part of the pipe like some of the Toyota, Nissan, etc.. have in their waternecks possibly.

Just a simple idea that may work.

-Sam

 

Nope, I can't weld. It is the one single part of my car that is still not as good as it could be.
It's all rubber hose, I'm screwed. I wish someone would come out with a coolant reroute that's up to my standards without a remote thermostat.

 

what happened to that metal pipe?

NM, I see how you are rerouting it now.

 

Any pics or links to a bleed valve that I can get a Loews' racing? Maybe I can tap that aluminum fitting in thurrrr.

 

Like a bauce: