Pull the head, Get a new gasket, retorque in sequence. Anytime you torque a gasket and then take the torque off you need a new gasket.

 

Man, I know how you feel. It's been soo cold (garage is not heated) and I have so much stuff to install but get lazy because of the cold weather. The past 2 days the weathers been beautiful but I can't finish up the head install and move on without this last stud....ugghhhh I guess it pays to get the ARPs the first time....or next time buy 2 sets of Alpers in case this happens since they are so cheap haha.

 

I have used the Alper Motorsports and own a Machine Shop, we have put them in 12 motors now,

Not one issue, the largest being a Stoked 6.0 with l92 heads making around 580hp in a desert race car. 2 years now no head gasket issues.

 

Buy one of those 100$ propane torpedo heaters from Home Depot.

I bought one and it can be 20 degrees out and on high setting I will be sweating in 15-20 minutes.. I have a two car garage that is not the best sealed. WELL worth the money!!

 

Sounds like something to look into, thanks.

 

I talked with them and they said DO NOT go to 3 thee settings only go to 30lbs and then 65lbs,

If you you torque them right the first time I dont think you would be in this mess.

Dont worry most musicians I know blame them on there instruments LOL

 

The imperfections on the stud are there regardless of how I torqued them. The driverside head all went on just fine and so did the rest of the studs on passenger side head, it was just this one stud that had some slight damage. Plus, maybe Alper should stick some directions in with the kit. I had to email him to get the torque values and even then it was very vague. He is a great help and the customer service is great but I think some more direction would help those who have never used them before.

 

Since you have had quite a bit of experience with these, will I be ok if I just throw the replacement in and torque it? I was told by Alper not to stretch the bolts by backing them off and re-torquing again, so this new stud would be torqued out of sequence.

 

I have had friends strip out the block replacing bolts to head studs after a motor has been running and still not have issues,

The torque sequence is mostly to keep the heads from warping, one bolt or stud out of sequence will give you no issue,

if it was a Ford 6.0 diesel I would be concerned but the Ls motors are over built by design, you will have no issues.

 

I just noticed half of your posts are about Alper products.....you say you've used the studs tons of times yet you asked someone for a pic of them?

Call it a coincidence I guess, but that's just weird....

 

If that came from the bolt manuf. straight, I would take that then.

It is part of being cheaper.

Well, the "stretching" isn't just about "stretching"... It also gets the stud/nut seated properly.

Let me ask this.. If they are studs and can be reused over and over, why would the "stretch" method of installing them hurt anything? Even if they it doesn't help, I see it impossible to harm anything at all.
Just something to think about.

 

What is their reasoning behind this statement because on the face it makes no sense. Only thing I can think of is they are cencerned with lack of lubrication when you loosen then tighten, which in turn will provide higher loads with the same torque value.

 

This is the response I got when I asked;

I guess it's just a lube issue, I'll add some more ARP lube to them if that's the case....

 

I lube the crap out of my head studs, I have talk to some people and they are even lube up the lug nuts when they put on wheels

 

I lube up my lug nuts, the hub, and the wheel with synthetic grease everytime I remove or replace them.

 

I would reuse it, I think it has to do with mostly heat cycle, I would think it would be worth a call to felpro,

I have stripped out a block and have tightened heads down and had to pull them back off and the motor had no issues,

I am pretty sure it has to do with the motor making a mechanical bond with pressure and Heat from the motor running.

 

I was using anti-seize on wheel studs forever. About two years ago, I started using ARP Ultra-Torque. I also lube up bigger fasteners like chassis bolts.

 

Just an update for those that are interested:

The block is actually stripped, while I still needed a new stud since the old did have some slight damage the block was still actually stripped out. I am looking into the timesert kits and talking to some local shops to weigh my options. The timesert kit seems pretty straight forward and it may be good to have in case anymore strip in the future. But if a shop can do it for cheaper then the price of the kit (which I highly doubt) I will go with a professional.

I will post results once I am done.

 

That sucks. If the stud was damaged and the block stripped too maybe you have a torque wrench issue?

 

Quite possible. I did verified it versus another wrench when I did the crank pulley bolt but that isn't exactly 100% proof. I'm guessing those particular threads were just weak since all the other ones were fine, honestly it could be anything at this point it would be hard to point it at one particular thing.

It is what it is, now it's time to resolve it.