ARP head studs

dieselguy · **Posted:** Tue Dec 10, 2013 1:57 am

Go to eBay type item # 370742009250, that's a Cummins mercruiser 230hp complete package ready to set in a boat, here's something for you to Google. Search 2.8l d-tronic Cummins, or mercruiser or VM motori, same engine just different head and can setup.

Glend · **Posted:** Tue Dec 10, 2013 7:53 am

He's right VM supplied Mercruiser for years.
But how many VM Mercruisers warped their heads or did gaskets, i'd be surprised if you could find ten. This search for ARP bolts, and head problems, doesn't seem to be a problem in export models worldwide - other than one mad Kiwi who blew his engine through over-reving all the time. Chances are if you stick a EXhaust Gas temperature sensor on it and drive to a reasonable temp target on your gauge you'll never need those bolts.

dieselguy · **Posted:** Tue Dec 10, 2013 10:13 am

I'll post a cpl things for you guys to read and I want kill anymore thread with this.

21-01-12, 20:15

Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_Motori

in 1947, the company produced the first Italian air-cooled diesel engine with direct injection.

In 1964 the company introduced entire new families of air-cooled diesel engines for fishing boats and the industrial machine markets.

1974 saw the introduction of a new series of high-speed (4200 rpm) HR, pre-combustion chamber, water-cooled, turbocharged engines.

The Alfa Romeo Alfetta, produced in Arese, rolled off the line with a VM Motori engine under the bonnet in 1979, signaling VM's move to the OEM automotive market.

During the 1980s British Leyland chose VM engines as the smoothest, most petrol-like units available for diesel models of their Range Rover and Rover SD1; the choice continued with the later Rover 800.

The after-cooled, electronic-combustion, "Turbotronic" engine was unveiled in 1990. It was supplied to Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, and Rover.

In 1995, when OEM automotive sales accounted for 75% of income. A major deal with Chrysler saw agreements to supply engines for their Jeep Cherokee and Voyager (2.5-litre) models.

VM Motori's 2.8-litre common rail turbodiesel engine was chosen for the Jeep Liberty CRD. The 2008 and later Chrysler Grand Voyager and 2012 model year Chevrolet Colorado That sale in Thailand is also fitted with the VM 2.8-litre (R428) engine.

GM Daewoo has licensed the 1.5-litre and 2.0-litre common rail engine designs, and built a dedicated engine plant, which started production 2006. The 2.0 L diesel is used in the Chevrolet Captiva/Opel Antara/Daewoo Winstrom, the Chevrolet Optra/Daewoo Lacetti, the Chevrolet Cruze and the Chevrolet Epica/Daewoo Tosca.

The latest vehicle to benefit from a 2.5 L VM Motori diesel engine is the purpose-built LTI (London Taxis International) London style taxicab - the TX4 is the first of the TX range of taxis to include a VM Motori engine.

The company is also selling its products to off-highway applications, such as marine and defense. MTU Friedrichshafen, a German diesel engine manufacturer, holds the exclusive sales rights for VM Motori off-highway engines outside of Italy.

In June 2010 VM Motori started the production of the new 2.8L 4-cylinder Euro 5 engine to power the 2011MY Jeep Wrangler, 2011MY Jeep Cherokee . The A428 has a maximum power of 200 PS (147 kW; 197 hp) and a torque of 460 N·m (340 lb·ft) at 1800 rpm. On the manual version of the Jeep Wrangler the A428 features the Stop/Start system to reduce the CO2 emissions.

In January 2011, VM Motori launched its brand new engine 3.0L V6. With 241 CV and 550 N·m (410 lb·ft) the A630 is among the best diesel engines in its class. As result of the collaboration with Fiat Powertrain Technologies the engine features the Multijet2 technology for improved performance, fuel economy and NVH. The first application of the 3.0L V6 is the 2011MY Grand Cherokee.

dieselguy · **Posted:** Tue Dec 10, 2013 10:17 am

For your information and entertainment the enthusiasts at TunnelBoreSix, who strive to supply parts for these engines, tell:

Early design changes to the modern diesel came out of ‘The Land of Ferrari and Lamborghini ‘ in Northern Italy. VM Motori, located there in the town of Cento, is a prime manufacturer of diesel engines. [ VM is currently owner by Roger Penske and GM ].

Applying the ‘tunnel bore design’ to a diesel engine came out of VM Motori’s engineering department in 1977. The development of this design was lead by VM R & D chief engineer, Ivo Maini. For fun, Maini ‘tricked up’ a tunnel bore six with amongst other things, a BMW gasoline fuel injection manifold and then installed his ‘Hot Rod’ diesel in a boat. In his diesel powered Hydro-plane he held world speed records for many years.

Also in 1977, BMW having manufactured marine engines since 1919, fired up their new BMW Marine GmbH division. To offer a full range of products, diesel engines were needed. With no suitable BMW diesel made ‘in-house’ BMW approached two relatively local engine makers; Hatz on the German – Austrian border and VM Motori in Northern Italy.

VM’s ‘ Tunnel Bore Six ‘ became the base upon which the BMW 6 cylinder marine diesels were built. VM supplied industrial engine blocks to the BMW Marine engine plant in Belgium. Here BMW’s engineers marinized them, producing the first BMW D150's. All the marine hardware and accessories’ were of BMW design. Engines were offered in two configurations, with a transmission or with BMW’s new Z-drive stern drives.

Engineering work never stops. Soon major cooling components were redesigned, intake air cooling ( inter-cooling ) was added and a D190 with 162 HP was introduced. Eventually the D190 was improved and became the D636. VM supplied a new 5 cylinder block and BMW introduced the 5 cylinder D530 to it’s product line.

Suddenly in December 1987, with little warning, BMW closed its Marine Division. The Belgium plant was sold to the American competitor, Mercury Marine. The paint guns no longer held BMW Silver, but Mercury Black, and the ‘BMW Diesels’ with logos removed and decals added continued rolling out of the Belgium plant. The D636 became a 636D-TA. The D530 became the 530D-TA. Soon Mercury changed the 636D-TA to the D219AC. The 530D-TA became the D183TURBO AC

Meanwhile in Italy, VM bored and stroked the 3.6 litre, increasing the displacement to 4.2 litres. VM also began building their own line of marine engines. In 1993 Mercury entered a new agreement with VM and new 4.2 litre engines were shipped to Mercury Belgium. Many of the VM marine accessories were shared with Mercury.

Again VM redesigned the early 4.2's (D254) and introduced the new MD706MI. The changes were primarily to the cooling system. In turn, Mercury replaced their D254 with the D4.2L/220 IDI and transferred the assembly of Mercury’s diesels to engines was completed at VM in Italy.

On February 14, 2002 Mercury Marine and Cummins Engine formed the Cummins, Mercury Distribution partnership. Today ‘CMD’ is primarily under Cummins management, and utilizes Cummins’s world-wide distribution network. Despite the ‘BMW Diesels’ as they are still referred to as, not being a Cummins product, Cummins continues to support and sell the D4.2 series engines. Mercury, both in Fond Du Lac and in Belgium continue with parts support.

Over the years the original BMW D150 ‘tunnel bore six’ marine engine has been greatly refined and improved. Indirect Injection (IDI) combustion gave way to Direct Injection (DI) and electronic ‘D-Tronic’ control of the injection pump was introduced. In the early 2000's diesel engine technology leapt ahead and horsepower outputs increased significantly. This progressed from 136 HP to 165 HP to 200 HP to 220 HP to 230 HP to 250 HP to 270 HP to 300 HP to 350 HP, proving that VM’s creation of this tunnel bore design diesel engine was a landmark.

As these engines age, parts become harder and harder to find. Owners, Marinas and Mechanics working on these engines were finding current and obsolete parts available from V12 Engineering via the website. Many of the original BMW Marine Parts are common to the latest CMD D4.2 engines. The best example of this is the new ‘MLS’ cylinder head gaskets, cylinder head bolts, etc. fit all models. We are now the source for ‘In Frame’ engine overhaul kits for all 3.6 and 4.2 litre engines. These ‘KITS’ include all bearings, pistons, rings, liners, seals, gaskets and o-rings to overhaul your engine. V12 Engineering ships parts world wide.

Aliases for the engine:
Mercruiser D254, D4.2L/220 - 300 D-Tronic
Cummins CMD 4.2 EI 300 - 350
VM HR.H 694, MR706 LS / LH / LX

And the latest follow-up:

In 2003, Penske Corporation purchased a 51% stake in VM Motori; in 2007, Penske bought the remaining 49% from DaimlerChrysler and subsequently sold 50% of it to General Motors. As of 2007, both deals were awaiting European regulatory approval and the value of the deal was not known.

In September 2008, GAZ Group announced plans to purchase a 50% stake from Penske Corp. but ultimately cancelled them in February 2009. January 11, 2011 Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera published news that Fiat S.p.A. is about to purchase 50% stake from Penske. In February 11 Fiat Powertrain Technologies confirmed it has bought the 50 percent stake.

dieselguy · **Posted:** Tue Dec 10, 2013 10:43 am

I'm sorry guys I know I said I was finished but I wanted to add the latest. In my Feb 2014 volume 9 number2 diesel world magazine on page 14 it reads a follows.
GM sells stake in Italian diesel engine maker
GM has sold its shares of stock in the Italian diesel engine manufacturer, VM Motori. Fiat and GM formed a partnership back in 2007 with each owning 50 % of VM motori, but with subsequent Fiat acquisition of Chrysler, GM has decided to go in a different direction. Fiat, as its sole owner of diesel engine supplier VM Motori, is moving ahead full steam on the diesel front. the 2014 Ram 1500 Ecodiesel and the new Jeep Grand Cherokee both offer the 3.0 Ecodiesel V-6 made by VM motori.

and if you guys care to see what it looks like there an 8 page write up starting on page 20. and yep its gonna have all the little quirky weird VM parts.

dieselguy · **Posted:** Tue Dec 10, 2013 4:13 pm

I guess im an idiot but can someone direct me to the headbolt torque sequence on this thing. I know its gotta be on here but I cant find it.

papaindigo · **Posted:** Tue Dec 10, 2013 4:32 pm

The sequence is in the Factory Service Manual, go to Sir Sam's NOOB guide and scroll down to the link to download copies of the FSMs. I assume that same sequence is used for the ARP studs but I know the torque method and values are different.

geordi · **Posted:** Wed Dec 11, 2013 12:20 am

Thanks for all the info about the Merc Marine and Cummins stuff. I stand corrected, and quite surprised. I wonder if there would be a way to use that Cummins setup to un-fork one of these engines from the mess that Mopar made of it.

As for the head bolts / studs - Use the factory pattern with either the ARP studs or the factory bolts, but FORGET about the 'turn-this-many-degrees' nonsense. Set the torques as follows: 130 lb-ft for the bolts directly bordering the cylinders (two center rows) and 120 lb-ft for the outside rows.

Racer asks where I get my information that these aren't stretch bolts. Simple observation and testing. The bolts are solid steel that is 1/2" thick. Much of the head is aluminum that is less than 3/8" thick. The head has many air and water passages, further weakening the crush strength.

I placed one of these factory bolts into a solid steel jig with a nut on the other end and proceeded to apply increasing amounts of torque with my 30" click wrench. At 200 ft-lbs, the bolt had showed no signs of stretching or yielding at all. At 250 lb-ft, the flutes on the actual bolt head rounded off. The bolt never failed or stretched. The strength was so high, that the nut I used was actually compressed about 1/8" INTO THE JIG by the force.

With data points like this, I can conclusively state that in this application, the factory bolts are NOT stretch bolts and the head will yield long before any bolts will. 130/120 for the torque, and drive on.

dieselguy · **Posted:** Wed Dec 11, 2013 1:21 am

Unfortunately from what research I did it looked pretty grim trying to do any mods. when cummins ship them over its literally bare block. the best I remember it also has integrated heads, I guess that's what you call it, in other words each cylinder has its own head. most of the marine world praise these engines because they have so much power and get excellent fuel mileage. of course they don't deal with the smog junk nor a junky timing belt. im not sure what cummins does to the bottom end but im sure its probably a lot more beef down below. I actually spoke with the cummins division, the mercruiser company and an independent boat service company about parts interchange and of course no one had a clue these were in automobiles. from what I saw a big majority of the marine application of these engines are up north, great lakes, and north eastern coast seems to be a hot spot for them. if theres any members on here from that area with any contacts at some of the marina's that would be a great place to start. I would love to get my hands on one out of a boat and see what I could make happen. one other thing I found was VM builds a huge array of engines with every application imaginable. the one thing I learned years ago, and this probably gonna make some of yall mad, but the united states gets the poorest quality on the market. even with American made products we get the cheapest made and the good quality is exported. I learned this many years ago as a factory warranty servicer. we had some advanced products hitting the market and we was in service training and all of us servicers figured we would have lots of failure because it was new to the market, the manufacturing company advised us that it had been in production for years but it was only sold as export because Europe and those other countries would laugh us out if we shipped to them what is sold here in America

hucorey · **Joined:** Tue Mar 06, 2012 4:29 am **Posts:** 378

This surprises me as much as it doesn't surprise me. US is only and all about profit margin. I know for a fact the engineers/bean counters factor in the balance of known bad issues vs amount of sales to cover under warranty vs cost of just making it right the first time. :twisted:

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

geordi · **Posted:** Fri Dec 13, 2013 7:22 pm

You have no idea how right you are. A perfect example:

When GM was selling full-size pickup trucks back in the late 70's / early 80's with externally-mounted "sidesaddle" fuel tanks, they KNEW that the trucks could explode into fire if impacted.

The tanks were mounted into the wheel wells of the dual rear wheels (possibly also single wheel) and could be ruptured if the tire blew just right, or if an accident impacted either side. The normal mounting point is the center of the body between the frame rails. It was discovered during one of the lawsuits that GM actually calculated out the cost difference between just paying lawsuit claims for anyone that was killed or injured by this bad design... Or doing a recall / designing it right the FIRST time.

I wonder if there was a similar conversation at Ford about the location for the fuel tank on the Pinto or the older Mustangs / full size chassis vehicles? Those tanks were just a thin sheet of steel away from the passenger compartment.

LMWatBullRun · **Posted:** Tue Dec 17, 2013 8:10 am

dieselguy wrote:

hey guys I have a question for you. <snip> now I have read every thread on this head bolt issue, I have never heard this engine run but since im at the head bolts Im thinking about retorking. im not going to spend and money on this engine at this point not knowing what im getting into but should I check the tork or leave well enough alone and see if it runs. sorry for such a long post but I felt you needed to know the whole pic of what im doing.

I've helped repair another member's engine who also did not want to spring for studs, and he elected to tighten the head bolts, not retorque them. I think this was a good idea, since several of them were fairly loose, and took a bit of rotation to get them up to 130 FP.

racertracer · **Posted:** Tue Dec 17, 2013 8:47 am

LMW what's the difference?

LMWatBullRun · **Posted:** Tue Dec 17, 2013 5:32 pm

In retorqueing, you loosen the bolt, take it out, relube both the threads and the base of the bolt (assembly lube, grease, or my personal choice ARP lube; YMMV) and retighten the bolt according to the factory torque or rotation spec. In this case, it would be the turn of the bolt method if you hew to the factory manual.

When you retighten, all you do is put a wrench on the bolt and snug it up. How snug is up to you. I figured that if the factory bolt was looser than the stud torque, there were definitely problems with that bolt, so I set the torque wrench on 130 fp and went to town in factory order. Went around the block twice, just to be sure. His CRD is still running, so I didn't do anything too terribly wrong. IIRC there were several that were loose, and I can't help but think that tightening them was an improvement.

dirtmover · **Posted:** Thu Dec 19, 2013 12:06 pm

LMWatBullRun wrote:

When you retighten, all you do is put a wrench on the bolt and snug it up. How snug is up to you. I figured that if the factory bolt was looser than the stud torque, there were definitely problems with that bolt, so I set the torque wrench on 130 fp and went to town in factory order. Went around the block twice, just to be sure. His CRD is still running, so I didn't do anything too terribly wrong.

Just curious, was he showing symptoms at this point or was it purely preventative?

LMWatBullRun · **Posted:** Mon Dec 30, 2013 2:10 pm

dirtmover wrote:

LMWatBullRun wrote:

When you retighten, all you do is put a wrench on the bolt and snug it up. How snug is up to you. I figured that if the factory bolt was looser than the stud torque, there were definitely problems with that bolt, so I set the torque wrench on 130 fp and went to town in factory order. Went around the block twice, just to be sure. His CRD is still running, so I didn't do anything too terribly wrong.

Just curious, was he showing symptoms at this point or was it purely preventative?

This was a repair of other issues, LOLO, LOT, rockers, etc. While he was in there I suggested studs, but budget did not permit, so we stuck the wrench on the bolts as a PM. If I get the chance, I will do the turn of wrench on Geordi's block and head with a torque wrench and report what the torque values are for the factory rotations. I would expect considerable variation even with ARP lube.

LMWatBullRun · **Posted:** Mon Dec 30, 2013 2:21 pm

papaindigo wrote:

The sequence is in the Factory Service Manual, go to Sir Sam's NOOB guide and scroll down to the link to download copies of the FSMs. I assume that same sequence is used for the ARP studs but I know the torque method and values are different.

I use and recommend the same sequence as the FSM for studs, with the following clarifications-

If doing a one by one replacement, I remove the old bolt, install the new stud, washer and nut, and torque to 100 fp in three steps. After I have done ALL of the studs, I then torque all of the studs to 115 fp in FSM order. I then do one last pass and torque the inner bolts to 130 fp, and the perimeter bolts to 120 fp in FSM order. If you are really OC, you can then loosen the nuts one by one and do it all again, as you supposedly pick up about 3 to 5 % more clamping force, but I see no point.

kjjet · **Posted:** Mon Dec 30, 2013 2:29 pm

LMWatBullRun,

Not a bad idea, but you will find variations due to corrosion and buildups on each stud may be different. All engines will have differences. Usually there are a few much harder studs to remove from an engine. This is caused by slight leaks where water and or oil gets in the threads. With years of engine teardown experience, I don't believe this is a true measure of how tight the head gasket is.

Best regards
KJJET

LMWatBullRun · **Posted:** Mon Dec 30, 2013 2:43 pm

By now, Geordi has done more of these than I, and I would welcome his input, but my experience is that the 'tty' bolts used at the factory show significant variation in removal torque, and further, that there is a strong correlation between high removal torque and deformation or galling of the surface of the head recess where the bolt bears. The next one of these that I do, I am going to put a mechanic's straight-edge on the head and measure for topside warp before I take out the bolts, and then again after I put the studs in. If I remove the head, I'll check it on a surface plate on both sides and see what's what.

I would also say that I have yet to see ANY contamination inside ANY of the bolt bores. Each of the factory bolts looked as though it were factory fresh, at least from the shoulder down. There was no corrosion of the thread. Given the long draw of some of some of the studs compared to others, I am reasonably sure that the head was being crushed down to full bearing on the block.

kjjet · **Posted:** Mon Dec 30, 2013 3:06 pm

From an engine builders stand point. A friend owns one. After an engine is built and in service for some time and then opened back up there are always stud differences. More so with aluminum heads. Due to heat expansion and contraction. I'm not saying VM did a good job putting these engines together. I'm just saying don't rely on looser or tighter studs to tell the hole story.

Best regards
KJJET

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