ARP Head Bolts????
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From: sojourning....looking for my city whose builder and maker is God.
ARP Head Bolts???? Used ARP Head bolts when replacing my heads. Took extreme care in cleaning bolt hole threads, used the molly lobe as ARP directed and followed all torque specs. Car had been slowly losing coolant since to install and today tracked it down to the head gasket. Can see some coolant on the drivers side back corner. Should have used the stock bolts!! 
Anyone else ever have this happen, is this a common thing??
Anyone else ever have this happen, is this a common thing?? Should be fine with the studs. I would re check-retorque em and see if that helps. Might get lucky.
Might pull that corner bolt and compare it to the stock length. There was just a thread about some ARP bolts being a bit to long. Look back a few pages.
Might pull that corner bolt and compare it to the stock length. There was just a thread about some ARP bolts being a bit to long. Look back a few pages.
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From: sojourning....looking for my city whose builder and maker is God.
Originally Posted by 618HAWK
Should be fine with the studs. I would re check-retorque em and see if that helps. Might get lucky.
Might pull that corner bolt and compare it to the stock length. There was just a thread about some ARP bolts being a bit to long. Look back a few pages.
Might pull that corner bolt and compare it to the stock length. There was just a thread about some ARP bolts being a bit to long. Look back a few pages.
How likely is it if they were torqued to specs that they could loosen up and cause a leak?
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From: sojourning....looking for my city whose builder and maker is God.
Originally Posted by ninobrn99
its likely that the bolt holes are still dirty and the head raised.
The thing is while they were installing the heads, one of the guys said he thought we should have been using the studs instead as he had heard people were blowing head gaskets with the bolts. I would like to know how big a problem this is, if a lot of people have had this happen.
Last edited by Lady Redhawk; Oct 1, 2005 at 08:15 AM.
**** are you serious? I just ordered a set of those ARP bolts! I cnat believe this ****. You spend big bucks on something and in the end its all ****. Worst part about it I have to wait a month for friken parts. Dammit. I should have gone with the studs.
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I would call ARP. If you installed per ARP instructions, the pre-load should be correct and they shouldn't loosen up. Torque to yield or ARP, you are simply striving for the same thing, which is the correct pre-load on the fastener and clamping force on the head. I would pull the covers and verify the torque on the bolts.
Which gaskets did you use?
Which gaskets did you use?
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From: sojourning....looking for my city whose builder and maker is God.
Originally Posted by vettenuts
I would call ARP. If you installed per ARP instructions, the pre-load should be correct and they shouldn't loosen up. Torque to yield or ARP, you are simply striving for the same thing, which is the correct pre-load on the fastener and clamping force on the head. I would pull the covers and verify the torque on the bolts.
Which gaskets did you use?
Which gaskets did you use?
To answer the other questions. The heads on the car are stock and used stock GM gaskets. The Cometic .040 gaskets I wanted were back ordered at the time.
The point of this thread is to find out how good/bad these bolts are and if I should use them again when we go in to fix it. I don't want to go on rumor, I would like to see what people have experienced with these ARP bolts.
Thanks everyone for your input so far.
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From: sojourning....looking for my city whose builder and maker is God.
Originally Posted by BAKED
I haven't had any trouble with mine and I have stock ported heads with GM gaskets. Of corse I only have about 2k miles on it too.
My car seems to do fine under normal driving, but with WOT, high MAP is when it seems to leak out the most. I don't think I would have noticed anything much if I never went to the track.
Why did you go straight to blaming it on the bolts? It could be a faulty gasket, maybe you put the gasket on the wrong way. Perhaps you just had some bad luck and need to pull the head and retorque it.
We had that same problem on an LS2 402 that a friend and I did. Turned out to be the "Cometic" (sp) gaskets. Replaced it with the GM gaskets and the leak went away. Also AFR heads & ARP bolts.
Originally Posted by Lady Redhawk
What is your apox HP and Tq?
My car seems to do fine under normal driving, but with WOT, high MAP is when it seems to leak out the most. I don't think I would have noticed anything much if I never went to the track.
My car seems to do fine under normal driving, but with WOT, high MAP is when it seems to leak out the most. I don't think I would have noticed anything much if I never went to the track.
I was advised not to use the GM gaskets since I'm spraying but I already had them and was too impatient to wait on another set.
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From: sojourning....looking for my city whose builder and maker is God.
Originally Posted by Ferocity02
Why did you go straight to blaming it on the bolts? It could be a faulty gasket, maybe you put the gasket on the wrong way. Perhaps you just had some bad luck and need to pull the head and retorque it.
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From: sojourning....looking for my city whose builder and maker is God.
Originally Posted by BAKED
I was wrong, it isn't the VE calc. that he uses to get the HP & TQ it is a program that he made.
