I have my motor in the machine shop. They told me that the studs were starting to pull on my vortec heads. I was told that it would be most cost effective to drill and pin the studs as opposed to drilling and tapping for screw in studs. Does anyone know anything about this? I was told it was an "old school" trick of the trade.

 

search my olds posts for info and a diagram on doing this.

 

You mean ROCKER studs; not cylinder head studs

 

I say just have them drilled/tapped for screw-in studs. I can't imagine such a simple task costing a lot of money... It's been awhile and I know all machine shops are different but I think I only spent like $150 having mine old vortecs drilled/tapped, cut for bigger springs, and then cleaned and assembled.

 

Yeah best bang for the buck is drilled and tapped

 

Yes I did mean rocker studs. Thank you!

 

Pinning is cheap/free. I think I still have a bag of 3/32" roll pins for when I did mine. The trick is getting a drill bit that'll go through the studs. They're very hard! I gave up, and pulled mine and tapped. I did that myself, using a homemade jig, and the Mr gasket collarless studs. Then later down the road, used the ARP ones with a collar. Either way works.