whats up guys so im rebuilding my gsr with 275k on her. well taken car of never beaten to hell all the bearings were amazingly good looking for the mileage.. so im re using my pistons but new rings of course. my question is that i was gonna buy new OEM connecting rod bolts regardless but the price is only a few dollars cheaper the the ARP kit. and since im getting ARP head studs, clutch bolts i figured what the hell get the rods as well.. my question is that i read some where that the rods must be re sized or modified for these bolts. i searched but ended up with biased infor or un knowladgable info. so im looking for in put of people who have used these on gsr rods. the old ones come out real easy. and i know how to press in using the thermal differential technique or a actual press. let me know what you guys have had to do or whatever. any feed back is welcome. thanks

 

You don't buy new OEM connecting rods...ever. You get the ARP rod bolts and have them installed by a machine shop.

 

you managed to not answer a single question that i had asked. i asked.

1. has any one used them?
2. did the rods have to be modified?

i can install them myself im a expert tech from toyota i do this **** day in and out. built plenty of motors but always with oem parts. now that im building my project i want to have some cheap peace of mind insurance. i just had read somewhere that the connecting rods have to be modified for the arp bolts. just want confirmation on this

 

they are easy as **** to install yourself. just do proper stretch procedure and you are set.

tighten them to torque spec and back them off 3 times
run the motor for a bit
drop the pan and retorque.

never had a single problem with installing them myself in any motor.

 

i have used the arp rod bolts before. they recommend that you refresh the rods because of the torque that is required.

 

26ft/lbs isnt enough to disfigure a rod and 50ft/lbs is hardly enough to start a minute change in shape

 

I say take the bolts and rods to a good machine shop and have them do it. I searched around forever trying to figure this out when I was planning on a CA18 build (I know, blasphemy, lol) because there were so many different opinions out there. Some say they need to be resized, some say they don't, and some even say to just torque them to stock spec.

I talked to the guys at Huntsville Engine (my local race machine shop, who are very reputable) about it. What happens is the ARP hardware has to be torqued to a greater spec (the one given by ARP) or else they could possibly come loose. This greater clamping load can deform the rods bore and make it oval. Obviously this isn't a good thing. So it's recommended to "resize" the rod bores. Yes, the arches are extremely strong, and it's quite possible that the extra torque won't even begin to deform the bores. But if you're building a motor to last I see no point in not at least having them checked. And if they do need to be resized it's really reasonable on the wallet to have them resized, especially for the peace of mind.

Also, contrary to popular belief, ARP hardware isn't really reusable time and time again. They're torque-to-yield just like a lot of OEM bolts, just the yield point is greater than stock hardware. You're suppose to check them every time you're going to reuse them and if they have a permanent stretch of more than a certain amount, 0.001" I think, you scrap them. The machine shop I talked to said they usually use them twice before getting new hardware.

Main studs aren't quite as important because they don't sustain near the loads the rod bolt do. And idk about head studs, since there isn't much of a way to measure stretch when torquing like you can with rod bolts. But I guess you can remove them and measure the permanent stretch. You can also feel when they won't hold the torque anymore. I talked to a guy who ice raced B11 Sentras years ago in NY (the head bolts in those motors are torque to yield). He always reused them, but was carefull to feel if they didn't want to hold the torque anymore. They'll continue torquing without increasing load, so when that happens just back it out and replace it.

 

That is pointless, the amount of money it costs for new connecting rods from honda, you could buy H beams with the ARP rod bolts already installed that would handle 10x more power more reliably.

 

Some people have used them with and without resizing the big end. I have eagle rods and when I changed from the Arp 2000 to the Arp 625+ bolt I had them resized. I know you want an answer before making a purchase and for that I would call arp. If they don't give you a concrete answer I would recommend you take a rod w/ factory bolt torqued and dial bore it for it size ( both x & y measurement for roundness). Then take the same rod, install the arp bolt, torqued to arp specs and dial bore again. If the measurement are the same you are good to go. If the measure changes resulting in the rod be out of round, have the big end resized.