legacycentral bbs

im doing a commonly talked about stroker on my engine and my builder says that all the motor hardware should be replaced. head studs, case bolts and all that good stuff saying if its like any other their strech bolts and shouldnt be used again. is this true and if so where should i get the new hardware? and what all will i need

replacing all the bolts is a form of insurance you might say. especially when you are going to be putting some serious hurt on the motor. is it totally necessary? maybe not. certainly not something a machinist is going to tell you and risk his work. but I think that you will find that a ton of people building hot motors reuse the bolts with good success. cant say if this machinist is just trying to cover his ass or he doesnt know a whole lot about EJ's.
subaru head studs are supposed to be good for 2-3 uses, I believe they are designed to stay within the elastic region of the bolts whereas something like a VW head stud is designed to go beyond the elastic region(stay stretched, fatigued slightly) and is good for only one use. Im really not sure exactly why car companies make stretch bolts other than consistency's sake in the tightening process or retaining tolerances in the motor.

thats funny you say that. he really isnt really familar with suby motors...and the funniest part. he comes from teh school of vdub and porsche

so the subies for sure dont use strech bolts?

azn2nr wrote:thats funny you say that. he really isnt really familar with suby motors...and the funniest part. he comes from teh school of vdub and porsche

so the subies for sure dont use strech bolts?

the cylinder head bolts are definitely strech bolts, and if you were building a motor up, I would not skimp on these, case bolts too, I'm pretty sure they're not strech bolts, but if you're taking the block apart and you plan on building it for power, replace them now, or tear it down later and replace them again with new ones when it suffers some damage related to those failures.


it falls back to the logic of: while you're in there, spend the extra money.

+1 on replacing them all, unless you have owned the engine from the get go..who knows how many times she's been opened up.

I wouldn't worry about the case hardware too much, it isn't torqued to all that high of a setting...head bolts may be a good idea though

Get some ARP studs.
They're well worth it.

I would resuse the case bolts for sure.

As for head bolts? I am putting 18 psi on some right now, and I think they are on at least their 2-3rd time around.....

god dam you guys adn your conflicting information. im inclined to belive doug but the numbers of rebuilds is making me wary.

so how does some new oem case hardware adn arp head studs for teh doch heads?

My rebuilds have nothing to do with the hardware.....

Too much nitrous has everything to do with the rebuilds... haha

true true.

someone over on the sock said that the case being aluminum that the case threads on teh motor will change shape before the bolts will. any truth to this?

Damnit.....there's nothing wrong with reusing any of the bolts on the engine.......Subaru only says to replace the head bolts......however there are plenty of people, including subaru dealerships, and subaru engine rebuilders that reuse the head bolts.

If you don't want to take any chances, don't reuse the head bolts, however all the other bolts there is nothing wrong with reusing them.