quick Q:

If you have head studs, instead of bolts, is there enough room with the engine installed to be be able to pull the heads? Or, will the head studs be too long and the heads end up hanging up on some other engine bay component, before they clear the studs, not allowing removal?

Putting together a parts list for a 355 I'm building. I'd like to run studs. But if I can't pull the heads while they are in the car I'll have to skip them.

 

Good question!

 

No.

There is almost NO chassis, and NO motor, where that exists. Not even a truck.

I STRONGLY recommend NOT using head studs, for that reason, among others (such as guaranteed leaks). They are pure unvarnished unadulterated unabashed bishop-buffing. Just because "all the fast cars" use them, doesn't make them A Good Idea for your car.

 

Is the Engine-Bay full of all the original equipment?

There is a massive difference between this:




And this:




The Secondary Air-Injection System (Emissions Control) is a definite obstruction.
The HVAC Evaporator-Core Housing and Accumulator can make things a tight fit.

Otherwise If the Engine is in the Stock-Location...
There should not be an issue.

 

I have head studs on my engine and I do not pull the heads with the studs installed.

Remove the nuts and washers. unscrew the studs from the block since they should not be torqued into the block. Remove head.

Torque is applied to hold down the head from the clamping force of the nuts. The studs do not turn in the block to provide bolt torque. The threads in the block are simply to keep the stud from pulling out, not to be twisted to provide torque.

Unless you have some sort of open chassis design such as an altered, dragster. 32 Ford etc that has nothing around the engine, you pull the studs before removing the head. It's also a whole lot easier to reinstall a head without studs in the block. Drop the head down onto 2 alignment dowels instead of trying to line up all the studs with the holes on the heads.

 

all, thanks for the replies.
I've never used head studs before, hence my lack of understanding of install/removal etc.
I'll probably just end up with hex head ARP bolts.

 

Why you gotta rain on my parade?

 

Isn't it funny how "the truth" has a way of doing exactly that?

 

In the 20+ years I've been on the forum, I've noticed that a lot of people come in to ask advice however when they're given real world experience, they ignore the advice and go on to do what they originally wanted to do anyway.

So many examples.

Wanting to rebuild a street engine to put back into their car but don't want to spend a lot of money however buying a prebuild engine will be much cheaper in the long run.

Wanting to put 22" rims under their third gen no matter how many people say they won't fit without heavy surgery.

I think the worst thing is "because I saw it done somewhere else"

Back to your head studs. I run them because I run a very high compression race engine that runs on alcohol. Do I need them? Probably not but for me it's extra insurance that I have uniform clamping force on the aluminum head with zero chance of pulling the threads out of a very expensive block from trying to torque bolts into the block. For a typical street engine, even one that's been built to make more power, the best suggestion is new OEM or aftermarket head bolts. I've seen a lot of 30+ year old head bolts that get reused when they look like they should be in a scrap metal pile. So many modern engines now use torque to yield bolts. If you read the manuals, every one of them say to install new bolts. Even if there was some way you could measure the stretch of the bolt, it's never recommended to reuse them. The older style head bolts were not torque to yield but still stretch and get metal fatigue after many years of being in an engine. It's an added cost to the engine when you need to spend $300 on a new set of ARP head bolts just to build an engine.