I'm picking up a used 2013 suburban with a 5.3 AFM motor. Believe it or not the engine only has 100k miles and not one broken exhaust manifold bolt! I was thinking of pulling the bolts and swapping in something to keep off the dreaded broken manifold bolt issues. I have used the cheap ebay LS style SS studs with nuts on all my builds with nickle antisieze but these are turbo motors without the stock cast iron manifolds. Does this make sense to do use the ebay SS studs on this or will that be worse? My understanding is the heat cycles and weight of the exhaust snaps the studs. I would pull 1 bolt out at a time and thread in a stud or new bolt? Any recommendations?

I've had to weld quite a few nuts on broken studs on LS and Hemi motors and would like to avoid that on this motor.

 

Back in 2016, I installed 2 sets of Gibson shorty headers: one set on4.8 with Magnuson blower, and other on an LQ9.
Both high mileage DAILY drivers: Run hard, put away wet. ALL of the (Gibson) supplied stainless bolts are still intact, and tight.
So far, two years running a Huron Speed V4 kit: all fasteners intact and tight.

My point: Yes, replace the factory fasteners.
Studs, or high quality bolts- either way- UPGRAYDD, Stat.

 

Appreciate the response. I'm torn on what to put though... I've used $14 ebay stainless studs but these are not big SUVs with lots of weight hanging on them. I could do ARP bolts perhaps but I also found a Dorman bolt kit that has spacers which allow for the bolt expansion... I generally do not like Dorman anything though. They are 40mm long bolts I think they have a 10mm spacer and the correct thread pitch but that are for a ford application. Standard 10.9 rating on the bolts which is about the same as grade 8... the ARPs are 170,000 psi rated or 20,000psi more than the 10.9 rating.