Hey, i'm not planning on taking apart the stock B18B bottom end. I was going to put a set of ARP rod bolts in there, but I plan on doing so simply by pulling the oil pan off and removing each stock rod bolt and replacing it with an ARP bolt one at a time. This way, I don't have to remove the rod caps, which wouldn't be that big of a deal, but for the sake of simplicity, I don't want to have to remove the rod caps.

What do you guys think?

 

bad idea. You still need to resize the rods. If you do it without resizing the rods then you might end up spinning a bearing or breaking a rod bolt down the line while the engine is running

 

I've done it the one bolt @ a time method and never experienced that. But what if you replaced bearings also...what's the chances of that happening?

 

the big end of the rod will be out of round when you replace the stock rod bolts with the arp's, thats why you have to resize the big ends. changing the bearings without resizing them wont help the situation.

 

the rod bolts don't just loosen off. they need to be pressed out and the new ones pressed in. you wont be able to do that without removing the rods from the enigne.

 

get it done right the first time!

or DO IT AND REPORT BACK! LOL

 

Sounds like a recipe for a very very short engine life.

 

Okay, here's what I didn't realize. I didn't realize that the ARP bolts would be torqued to a higher spec than the stock spec. I can't believe that I missed that, but oh well. Anyhow, being that the new bolt will be torqued tighter, then the rods big end will need to be honed/resized for the new torque spec.

Cool.

Anyhow, I don't think i'm going to mess with it. Stock, and turn it no higher than 7500, and that's it. None of that 8000+ rpm stuff. At least that's where i'm at in my plans thus far.

 

I;m surprised no one is asking why you would want ARP's on a stock non-vtec bottom end?

 

It seems you still dont realize that even if they called for the same TQ spec, the old ones STILL need to be pressed out and the new ones pressed in.

 

Yes, I forgot to add that. Thanks.

 

So do you guys think 7500 as a rev limit for a completely stock LS bottom end is too much? Maybe 7300? Wow, I should stick with B16's. Or bore one out.

I don't have it fixated in my mind that that's the thing to do, but if a handful of people say it failed for them, then I could only guess what would happen to me.