Gonna be putting the heads on my 355 tomorrow night. Do I need thread sealant for my head bolts? I have read horror stories of studs leaking after bolting the heads on and I trying to avoid this problem.

I have AFR 195 Eliminators (old style) going on a 355 that is fresh out of the machine shop with a set of GM Impy gaskets. If you guys think sealant is a good thing to use, what sealant do you recommend?

 

I dunno, with alu heads I'd think you might want to use it more than with cast irons. That's just my train of though though, based on the alu's expanding and shrinking characteristics.

 

i used number 2 sealant on my arp head bolts. they've been good so far

 

ARP Thread sealant is what I used, get 2 tubes of it and be liberal as hell with it.

 

I've always used Permatex High Tack. A bud has a blown SBC and had some leaking through the head studs when using the ARP sealent. He switched to this Permatex stuff and the leaks went away. Nice and sticky-goopy.
http://permatex.com/products/Automot...et_Sealant.htm

 

AND it has a brush!! That's what I used on the last SBC I slapped together. Like Speed said, be liberal as hell. If you want to, just dunk each bolt in the can (personally I think that's taking it a wee far heh)

 

I have used both the Permatex stuff above and the ARP thread sealer. They both work good. I prefer the ARP stuff because it is made for fasteners being torqued to a specific number. One tube of ARP is more than enough to do a SBC

 

"I prefer the ARP stuff because it is made for fasteners being torqued"

Agreed. BUT with studs, you'd lube the nut on top, never use sealant on it.

 

Yeah, that should be assumed being the stud is already sealed from water on the bottom lol