Dodge Durango Forum II

Re^2: MAJOR OVERHEATING ISSUE- Need info. - kinda long!

G. Matsushige Inst. Spec.Kamuela Hawaii
grant@cfht.hawaii.edu

You are right in that the vegas certainly had their share of problems. However, I know it's more a matter of design and maintenance then anything else. I've had Toyotas run well over 200K without any kind of problems. I guess the whole point is there are always exceptions. I know a lot of great performance combos that use cast iron heads too.

In fact if you look into today's engines, almost all performance engines have AL heads AND AL blocks for that matter. They've come a long way with manufacturing and realiability. But I guess that's what I was trying to say in an earlier post. We've become spoiled. The computer that controls the engine along with everything else we use (CNC's, casting, etc) have certainly made things much easier (in many ways) to live with. Here at our observatory we were constantly fighting driveability problems with our vehicles going up and down to the summit of the mountain. Now we don't think twice about driving from the beach right up to the 14,000 foot elevation of the observatory.

Anyway, I've digresses. I was just trying to state some of the general advantages of Al heads versus steel. Al is also lighter by quite a bit. But yes, Al is more costly and has it's share of risks.

Anyway, just a discussion.

aloha,
g

Fri Aug 1