Well this past weekend I was driving and the gasket let go. Today we pulled the head off and noticed that some of the head bolts were hand tight. On cylinder one and two the head bolts up front of the block (closest to the bumper were all hand tight). How can this be. The car dynoed over 400 horsepower not even 500 miles ago. Although I did have the head gasket changed right before the dyno and this past weekend was the first time I had drove the car for more than a hour and a half straight.

What could cause the head bolts to back off like that? Could the stretch that much. The block has been sleeved with aftermarket sleeves and im using stock head bolts. Please dont tell me that the stick head bolts dont work cause jinx on this board used them for well over 500 horses. One question I have is if a sleeve sunk would that cause the head bolts to back off. I dont think so but Im really confused to how that head bolts just backed off. If anyone has any info on this matter please help. Im gonna be putting the car back together on thursday or friday and if there are any precautions I can take im open to suggestions. Thanks guys.

 

if you are using stock head bolts they dont keep there holding power very well if you have taken them off before. if you have all that money in the car why not spend the extra 100 for some arp studs and get rid of the headaches???

 

yup exactly, also if the head lifted by stripped the threads in the block out that is another reason for only being hand tight.

You'll know if that happened if you goto torque them down and they just keep turning. Then you're in for a real treat.

 

On my old sleeved block, i reused a set of stock head bolts torqued to factory specs and the headgasket let go about a month down the road. I didn't check the torque on the headstuds when i tore it down, but they were atleast more than hand tight. I use arp's now on all my other motors and haven't had any problems. Maybe get a bolt stretch gauge and see how much the bolts stretched.

 

or just get arp head studs and be done?

 

is there a way I can check to see if the threads are stripped with the head off. I tried threading the bolt in the block wth the head off and it did thread up. Thanks guys. Also if they are stripped how hard is it to get that fixed.

 

I wouldn't put it back together with those stock headbolts again. Just get some arp's and put on a new headgasket with some copper spray. If you have the right size tap, spray some brake cleaner in the bolt holes and run a tap through them to clean them up. If the threads are good it should run through the threads very smoothly. Then run a a good headbolt down and if it goes down smoothly and tightens down when you reach the head of the bolt the threads should be fine. When you pulled the headbolts out, did you check the threads for any metal shavings? If they were clean when you pulled them out, then you should be ok.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by boostaholic &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I wouldn't put it back together with those stock headbolts again. Just get some arp's and put on a new headgasket with some copper spray. If you have the right size tap, spray some brake cleaner in the bolt holes and run a tap through them to clean them up. If the threads are good it should run through the threads very smoothly. Then run a a good headbolt down and if it goes down smoothly and tightens down when you reach the head of the bolt the threads should be fine. When you pulled the headbolts out, did you check the threads for any metal shavings? If they were clean when you pulled them out, then you should be ok.</TD></TR></TABLE>

yes after the head was off I ran the headbolts back in the holes in which they were loose, they went back in there pretty smoothly. I ran the bolts all the way in there and it wasnt hard to turn at all. If the threads were stripped out the bolts would not go back in there, right?

 

not neccesarily, they might be loose so when you go to torque them down they won't grab and they'll just strip the threads, thats what happened on mine at least.

 

thanks foozball. anyone else had any problems with stripped studs or bolts.

 

well now that you found the problem now i would check the head.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by egg &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">well now that you found the problem now i would check the head.</TD></TR></TABLE>

yeah I get off of work in 2 hours and im going straight to the machine shop to drop off the head. After creating this thread it made me decide to order some studs. Hopefully by the weekend we will have the car up and running and ill post up how it does.