So far I have center o-ring gasket, head/in/ex gasket. I am planning to re use my cylinder head plug and cam seals. Anything I forgot?

Oh yeah, is it truly necessary to replace head bolts?

I dont remove/install heads frequently so just wondering what else I may need to look out for.

Thanks.

 

I think it's perfectly safe to reuse the head bolts at least once. Even teh service manuals never say to replace them. Most builders just have a natural tendency to do this, especially on turbo blocks, in which case they switch to using ARP headstuds w/ nuts instead of the bolts.

On high mileage motors, you wanna replace the valve seals while you've got the head off.

Valve cover gasket & spark plug gaskets you might want to replace, but unless they're torn, they don't leak if you tighten up the valve cover nuts properly.

 

I NEVER reuse head bolts, unlesss im at the track and i have no other recourse

 

Is there a bad experience that goes along with this? Usually you got a good story to tell with every rule of engine building.

 

I reused the stock head bolts 4 times before. The 4th time was on my turbo motor...10k miles later, no problems still. I'm sure it's probably better to replace them, but that's a lot of money you can save by reusing them.

 

I've had the head gasket not seal once.
I've also had them back out after a few hundred miles.
I've also had no problems reusing.
But its a gamble when reusing them and when using new bolts I have never
had any problems.

 

mucho mucho gracios