Stock bolts.

 

Care to elaborate?

What do they know that everyone else is missing? Cause I would love to save the money and slap a set of bolts back in old green.

 

Stock bolts stretch. There's no denying that, it's a fact. If you are running any kind of bigger turbo, or even have the wastegate plugged, you are running the truck over boost for the design of the head. Even a programmer will make you run more boost than intended for the engine. Supporting mods before performance mods. It's peace of mind to know you have some extra protection from blowing another head. I'd say at least do the Allen bolts from mighty diesel since you're doing the work anyway. They don't stretch like the stock bolts do. In the long run they WILL save you the money of doing it over again

 

Bolts stretch yes, but so do studs that's why they hold. If you go slow and torque them up to 135-145 lbs they hold quite well. I would run orings with a healthy protusion also.

 

Its not boost that kills HG's. I feel that studs are overrated to a certain point depending on your setup. Torque slow and going by 5lb increments or so with plenty of time for the bolts to cool and your fine. I agree with 12valvetater.

 

Going to 145 ft/lbs on stock bolts is absolutely outrageous. At that point the bolts are losing their rigidity and clamping force completely due to stretch. Plus you are running a huge risk of breaking bolts. Yes studs do stretch slightly but they are designed to. Studs will stretch only very slightly upon initial torquing and once they are at 125 lbs, shouldn't stretch more over time. Bolts will stretch on torque and also over time... This is also why the mighty diesel bolts hold better. It's not because of sheer clamping force, but because of the type of material they are made of. I highly recommend not going over 110 lbs on stock head bolts, and many guys on here will say exactly the same thing. A head will hold better at 110 lbs than 145 lbs with stock bolts. Stock bolts get weaker and weaker the more they stretch. And yes boost does blow heads. Go run 80lbs of boost on a stock head and see how long it lasts. Drive pressure is probably what you are trying to get at by saying boost doesn't blow gaskets, and I agree, but boost definitely plays a factor also.

 

Studs are a cheap insurance policy to keep from blowing a headgasket and having a stock bolt shear off in a hole.

 

Well i'm not suggesting that somebody grabs a cheap torque wrench that is 20+ years old and start wrenching it down to 140+ pounds. I'm saying 80 bucks for a set of stock bolts is a huge savings and I can replace a lot of headgaskets for the savings in price on studs. You need a good accurate wrench, and you need a good lube to torque with. ARP lube works probably the best. Going slow is key when using bolts. This is just the way I look at things I've put engines together with bolts and I've put them together with studs. Bolts and O-rings are way cheaper.

 

But cheaper is not better when it comes to performance, and cheap power is not reliable power. The reason you have to go slow when torquing is to allow time for the bolts to stretch which is exactly the opposite of what you want them to do. The more they stretch the less strength they have.

 

Going slow puts less stress on them and allows the threads to cool down. Like I said if you want to spend the money for studs by all means go ahead, but for the performance levels most of you are looking for they are not needed.