Mechanical 6.5 diesel

[Dieselbrent]

I am rebuilding a 1997 6.5 diesel engine and I'm wanting to run a turbo that makes 20psi of boost. I found on quadstar tuning. I bought arp heads for it and I talked to a machinist that's doing the heads for me and he said I need to put a thicker head gasket on which idk what thickness or the reason. I'm wondering what else I need to do to the motor so it will be reliable and last with the turbo I want. Also I'm thinking about getting a stud kit for the mains to. Hope yall can help me out. With my problem


Thank you,

 

[Blue Ox]

Without trying to sound obnoxious, but it will.....

Don't bother with the head studs. At the power you're talking about pushing, the crankshaft will fall out of that thing long before the heads give up.

 

[Vbb199]

Seems like stock the 6.5's turbo makes like, 5-8 pounds of boost. Thing already sounds like its gonna fall apart.
20 seems suicidal lolz


Your "machinist" probably recommended thicker head gaskets to shorter the compression ratio a bit so when you go cramming 20 psi up its ass, it doesnt immediately evict a rod from the block

 

[Blue Ox]

They usually run around 10 psi. Whether it was the aftermarket kits or the factory 6.5L. The thick gaskets are made +.010" to salvage blocks that have to be decked. I don't know that there's much benefit to lowering the compression on a street engine since it spends most of it's life at low to no boost. It will probably make it harder to start and run poorly when it's cold. Don't buy into the argument that "They'll seal better." They don't seal any differently than the std gasket.

I believe when Peninsular hopped them up for marine applications they added a girdle to the mains. I'd see if you can find a girdle kit for it. The bulkheads in those engines are very weak and they give up in normal service, never mind hot-rodding. If you look at the Navistar version they make for the military it has a bedplate that replaces the regular oil pan. That's about the only way to make these engines survive.

I'd probably try to intercool it if you're putting that big a turbocharger on it. There's a reason you don't see these things on the dragstrip very often. They don't breathe well at high RPM. Cooling the charge air would help get more air mass into the precombustion chambers rather than just pressurizing the cr@p out of it. No matter what, though, those precombustion chambers are going to limit what you can get out of it.

 

[Dieselbrent]

Thank yall for the advice I ended up putting the thicker head gaskets on and put studs in it now going to look for a girdle for it. I plan on just pulling and driving it to work.