head bolts

[DieselSlug]

What is the exact procedure for retorquing of the head bolts? Thats sounds like a PITA to take the intake back off to get to the injector lines, to retorque the head bolts. Is that true? Do you have to re-torque them after a warm up cycle? I am redoing the top end of my engine, the bottom end is staying as is due to the fact it is low mileage. What kind of "break in" do i have to do when i fire it up? The engine has been sitting for about 2 years before i got to it. If that is the case then i am going with head studs, i will pay the extra money if it keeps me from ripping off the intake again.....

 

[midniteplowboyy]

Thats one of the theories behind the torque to yield bolts, it stresses them to the stretching point and hopefully if the gasket settles it'll have enough elasticity to clamp the gasket back down.

Also todays gaskets are alot better, they dont settle near as much, most don't need/recommend a retorque.

So basically, you don't retorque them. Some guys will check for a soft bolts later on, but its kinda hard to say what the actual torque should be on a bolt that's already stretching/getting soft.

A TTY bolt, you torque it to a certain point(like normal), then you have to rotate it so many additional degrees.

What I do on head bolts is torque them and let it sit overnight if time permits, retorque the next morning, then if they are TTY apply the last step of so many degrees.

If you use studs, they are not TTY, you can retorque them at any time you have access to them.

Sorry I cant explain it better.

HTH,

 

[Matt Bachand]

The first year or two of the 6.2 had standard head bolts, the TTY bolts was GM solution to the head gasket issue, a great improvement but not the best solution, damn bean counters.

The felpro head gaskets and bolts are light years ahead of what they used in 1982. If they would have used one sized bigger bolt and 1/4" bigger bore spacing we would have alot better engine.

Wouldn't that weaken an already weakness?

 

[midniteplowboyy]

I meant bore center to center line, so there would be 1/4" more meat between the cylinders and mains. That would pretty much fix the block weaknesses, but not the over heating, low power, PMD's and $hitty IP's though.