Looks like he's gonna get a lot of sleep when he does the cam.

 

Nah, I just needed to paint them, examine the old ones, and repaint the Valve covers. I used Krylon black wrinkle paint on the covers, they look pretty good.

Honestly, it's the damn headers that take forever.

I must have had a valve guide on #5 wear severely. I had scrapes on the inside of the cylinder head up at the top side of the chamber, my guess is the valve was floating a bit while it was firing. I got lucky.

I'll take some pics and post them later.

 

did you get new bolts?

 

yes, I put new head bolts in.

I've heard of guys reusing them, but I won't take that chance with a new set of heads on 90K bolts.

 

What did you get? I've been watching a set of arp bolts but I found a set of studs as well. IIRC they say studs are better. If so I might as well spend the like 3 bucks extra and get them.

Is that right that studs are better?

 

I just went felpro. They look exactly like what came out.

 

Head bolts are pretty substantial, and frankly, I trust the factory bolts more than today's questionable metalurgy on some replacements. Generally, if your running high compression ratios, boost, nitrous, etc. that require higher torques, then you need to replace the bolts with something stronger or use studs. Nothing wrong with reusing the head bolts on a NA, 9:1 motor. However, always thoroughly clean and check the bolts for damage and thoroughly chase the block threads before reusing them. Never reuse a damaged bolt.

Squirrels, did you find any cracks in your old heads? Glad you like the performance. Your reaction was similiar to mine.

 

I did notice some scoring on the #5 intake side of the cylinder head. My guess is I might have had a valve float a bit off center. Possibly a worn valve seal. Not 100 percent sure on that though. I did have an Idle stumble that's gone. The old head showed no visible cracks, but I did not pull them apart for a thorough inspection.

 

Rexx sometimes I wonder about you lol. ARP makes the greatest fastners in the auto industry. I was gonna reuse my stock bolts. However they have been in a box in the bed of my truck since I took them out. I decided it was better to buy new ones then use old rusted up bolts. Plus saying you have ARP head bolts sounds cool along with all the other name brand parts lol. Getting them of ebay I'll only be paying around 30 dollars more then the felpros Aim got. Advance recommends replacing them as well.

 

I'm not faulting anyone's rationale for wanting to buy new head bolts. The question is: is it really necessary? For a relatively stock non-boosted engine the answer is "no" unless the bolt(s) are damaged in some way. It would take a helluvalot of ft. lbs. and really brittle bolts to snap one off when reinstalling them. Now, in your case, with them pitted up with rust, I wouldn't reuse them either, but how did they come to be that way?

I'm sure ARP is a good product, but anything made overseas (like China) I wouldn't trust. And yes, I can see the logic of Advanced Auto Parts recommending new head bolts.