I have just changed the camshaft on my 93 model 350 Lo5 Chevy small Block.
The retainer plate was fastened very good with two "six tag star umbraco" bolts.
When I removed the bolts, they were clean with no thread sealer on.
After the cam change I put them back on the same way.

Later I read that the these bolts should be fastened with only 18 ft lbs and thread sealer??

I'm sure that the cam I removed was the factory cam, and the bolts were tourgued very good and the bolt were clean.

What's correct?

 

18 ft-lbs is about right. It's not super critical; not like it's crushing a gasket to a specific tolerance or anything like that. Just gotta be tight enough to hold it together, but not so tight it strips or breaks something.

Torque always goes with hardware size, with only very rare exceptions. Look at the size, use that much torque. Pretty straightforward.

 

When I was building my engine I searched long and hard for a torque spec, I found 15 lb. ft. When I torqued it to that I snapped the head of the bolts off. Id suggest maybe half that with some threadlocker.

 

Thanks for your answers.

I have fastened them back on with app the same force as I used when I loosened them.
I haven't used any thread locker, as the bolts hadn't remainings of that when I took them off, and I'm sure this is like it was from the factory.

 

I've never seen thread locker on them from factory.

 

I agree. I only used threadlocker because all of the specs I found were 15 lb. ft. or higher and that was breaking bolts. So it gave me piece of mind that using a lower torque wouldn't let it back off (because cam walk of a roller cam was more worrisome to me than using threadlocker in a place that didn't have it before).