How Many of you installed Head Studs on a ZZP or DDM Stage 1 Turbo install?

I believe the Stage 1 Turbo is limited to 300whp or less. And I believe the stock engine can handle that pretty well without upgrades. If anyone corrects me on this, then I'm lucky my motor has not exploded yet... LOL

I don't know the torque specs for the Head Studs, but Kyle (ZZP) and Dave (DDM) build these motors so they have the secret recipes. If no one responds within a day or two, you could send them a direct message. They are both kind and helpful professionals.

Quote from Turbobuick

How Many of you installed Head Studs on a ZZP or DDM Stage 1 Turbo install?

Early on, back in the days when Alpha was still around, Henry at Alpha made a big deal about installing head studs in all of the turbo engines that they installed their turbo kits on. Towards the end, Alpha started to have a lot of engine failures with their turbo kit caused by several factors, head studs not being one of the issues. They were destroying a lot of pistons with their kit installed, and the thought was they were lifting the cylinder head and coolant was getting into the cylinders and destroying the engine, hence the ARP headstuds were installed to help prevent this from happening. As I mentioned earlier though, that was not the issue causing the engine failures. Henry at Alpha claimed he saw loose stock head bolts and that was the reason that they made a big deal about swapping in the ARP headstuds. So a lot of those kits you will find have the ARP headstuds installed.

That being said, I would say a significant portion of all the supercharger and turbo kits we have been selling/installing for the Slingshot since 2015 go on completely stock engines with no internal upgrades. We do not actively recommend the ARP studs to customers when selling either or supercharger or turbo kits, as there is some risk to installing the studs and for the most part the stock head bolts have proven to work at the power levels we recommend running our kits at. The engine failures we have seen out there with turbo kits are typically from heat related issues at the piston, which causes piston failure or engine knock due to tuning/mechanical issues. There is one kit that does have a tendency to destroy rods, none of these failures are not caused by a lack of ARP head studs installed in the engine.

We have had a stock Slingshot 2.4L engine with 2 head bolts loose from the factory show up here. I couldn't believe it, but did shoot video of it just to document it, that is pretty rare though. Even with those 2 loose bolts, the engine operated fine with a Stage 1 turbo on it. We did replace all of the head bolts with ARP head studs in that case.

So, if you want to install the ARP headstuds, it is going to be nice insurance and a good idea if you really want to make things as safe as possible, but in general we have not seen a big need for it with our supercharger or turbo kits.

Hope that helps,

Dave

I would have to agree with Dave here. The only time I ever recommend a set of head studs is if A: you are building a new engine, or B: the head is coming off for what ever reason any way. They are definitely not required for any of our turbo kits. Like Dave said, head studs are great to make things as safe as possible; and being reusable, if the head comes off in the future for any reason, you're not buying another set of head bolts.

On a somewhat related theme - My Daughter pointed this out to me while we were putting the hood back on after installing the ZZP Billet Hood Hinges. It felt more like dirt than any type of leak and I can't say I remember seeing it before, but paranoia requires me to ask more experienced folk. Has anyone else noticed similar issues? This spot seems to be the only area on the engine block where there is much of a shelf to trap dirt.

That's just a slight weeping from the cam cover gasket. I would check your small cone shaped crankcase breather. it probably is dirty and needs to be cleaned or replaced (depending on what you have). You are tuboed correct?

Yep, Hahn Stage 2 turbo kit with the cone-shaped breather that is pretty dirty.