The home of the UK's greatest sportscar
08/07/2009
Racing Green TVR can now supply specially manufactured cylinder head studs for both standard finger follower cylinder heads as well as for the upgraded FFF cylinder heads. Fitting the cylinder head to the TVR Speed 6 engine should always be done with the use of studs rather than the standard cap head bolts. The use of studs in this application ensures a much more predictable and accurate torquing of the cylinder head gasket. The standard cap head bolts are a coarse metric thread and tightening these coarse steel threads into the aluminium block can produce a massive variation of clamping load as applied to the cylinder head gasket because of variations in the friction. The fitting of cylinder head studs to the cylinder block immediately removes the problems associated with the coarse thread and the interface between the steel cap head bolts and the aluminium block. The tightening of the cylinder head is carried out using the fine threads on the stud which allows for a much more precise torque related loading of the cylinder head gasket. Please note that a very high quality thread lubricant, as supplied by ARP for instance, must be used to ensure that clamping loads are identical for a set torque and to minimise any variations.