Can someone give me some tricks to installing rod bolts. Also is it absolutely necessary to use a bolt stretch gauge when installing them? pics would be great too. thanks

 

Swapping rod bolts is not something you want to do at home. Start by inspecting the rods, they should clean with hone marks on both ends, if you cant see the hone marks and see bluish/black marks or see the imprint of the back of the rod bearing on the machine surface the rods are going to be out of specs from hammering, and check for cracks. Then you want to check both ends of the rods on a rod gages usually attached to the rod hone. If the rods are out of spec you press the bolts out machine material off the rod and cap, reassemble and hone. We don't rebuild alot of rods, you can buy new rods as cheep as you can buy rod bolts and have them worked. On torquing you can use ARP lube and follow their directions. Torque loosen and retourqe three times and you will be OK.

 

Every time I've had rod bolts replaced...I've had the rods resized. Resizing them is not something you can do at home (well you can, but you need the propper equipment). In theory you could press the old ones out and press the new ones in, but that still isn't the correct way to do it. Machine shops use a rod oven to get the rods evenly heated to make removal/installation easier.

 

Rod heaters are for the small end of the rod on pressed fit piston pins.

 

I knew they used them for the small end. I thought they used them for the big end as well too.

 

so What would you guys recommend doing when using the stock rod bolts? This is on a vortec long block.

 

They will be powdered metal rods with cracked caps so they can't be rebuilt.GM uses them in their ZZ4 and 604 crate engines. In new condition they are better than anything GM used in the past. You have two choices, if the housing bores check good reuse them as is(not recommended unless they are new) replace them. http://www.summitracing.com/parts/SCA-25700P/