Watched an episode of 2 guys garage this weekend and they were taling about head studs and how the pressue is placed along the stud itself and not the head of the bolt. They went on to say that this was a stronger method of mounting the heads, pevented cylinder distortion and held torque better.

I am going to have to buy new fasteners for my Brodix heads and am considering studs now. The only posible draw back is ability to remove the heads easily while the motor is still in the car. This isn't a big deal as I have an engine hoist.

What are you guys' opinion?

 

unless you plan on running massive amounts of compression/blower/turbo/nitrous i wouldn't bother. Just get some arp's and be happy. Sounds like a waste of money for a n/a motor to me.

 

I'm running ARP studs on my BB and all my fastners are ARP as well. It's added protection if nothing else.

 

You don't NEED them. You can also get the hex-broached studs from ARP that makes removal in the car much easier.

What the "Two Guys garage" does is sell products.

Many times they're Bubba wrong. I saw one show where they were checking the valve to piston clearance on a big cam. Dave rolls the crank to bring the cam to the intake centerline(max lift), and then pushes down on the valve stem(had checking springs in it) to see if he has enough clearance. The valve stopped, and he called it good since it moved a lot. Well, all he did was verify that the retainer will actually hit the guide if you press down on it. The piston is so far down in the bore at ICL that it proves nothing. I'm sure someone who uses the non-Bubba method informed him later about how silly this looked. They make the same "bigger is better" mistakes as most folks. It's just that it's worse with them since they present themselves as having some level of expertise in this.

Studs are nice if the engine is going to be coming apart frequently. This saves wear and tear on the threads.

Studs are nice if you're running a lot of cylinder pressure(compression over 14:1, boost over 10psi, big shots of nitrous).

Studs don't matter for "accurate" torque since we assume that you're using proper assembly techniques (clean threads, lubed fastner, proper washers where needed) and a couple foot pounds one way or the other ain't going to matter.

 

The only drawback of the studs is...they make head removal with the engine in the car a pita, you have to remove the master cylinder to get the drivers side head off.

 

One thing Two guys failed to mention is that you have to have your block head bolt holes blue printed. That means correctly tapped all parallel to each other!

I was doing a rebuild years ago and carefully installed all the studs on a motor just back from machine work and I couldn't even install the heads over the studs because of gross misalignment.

I never leave home in my Vette without a fully studded motor.

 

you dont need studs. just get the arp bolts. they are far superior to stock bolts even though theres nothing wrong with stock bolts. and although two guys are very knowlegable, these shows are all about marketing. did old muscle cars need arp's to run 500+ hp? no. they managed just fine with the OLD technology.

 

 

 

Small blocks are not a problem for head removal with studs. Big block is probably a PITA without a Hydraboost sytem where the brake booster is removed

 

I use studs because they releave the stress in the block. With a bolt only 3 or 4 of the top threads in the block hold all the load. With a stud the load is distributed over the entire length. Studs type everything together.
I do not use studs for the initial assembly since putting the heads on even on an engine stand is harder, cranks are almost impossible.
So I use normal head bolts and main bolts for blueprinting but for final assembly I use studs.
Like George said I don't leave home without studs.