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| The following is for informational use only, author(s)
are not responsible for damage or any other expense caused by the use of
this information. In all cases of jacking up the car, or using tools, BE
CAREFUL and DO IT PROPERLY. Parking brake, wheel chocks, and jack stands
are NOT OPTIONAL, they are NECESSARY. Always disconnect the negative
battery lead where electronics or welding are involved, and make sure the
lead is touching nothing but air. Be safe, and have fun. See the
Safety Tips
page for more info. This is a pretty simple install, the hard part is finding the proper instructions, so I called ARP and here you go: 1. Clean the bolt holes THOROUGHLY! First, wick out all the water with rolled up paper towels or pipe cleaners until the end comes out dry every time. This is very important. Any water left and you'll ruin your engine block. Once fully dry, use a thread chaser (or one of the stock bolts with two sides flattened) to clean the threads. I used brake cleaner on this chaser for the first two passes, then dry for the next 5 or so. It takes 7-10 passes on each hole to get them clean, and use a wire brush in between each one to clean the chaser. I used a paint stripper attachment for the drill, which is a circular wire brush. This procedure took me 5 HOURS but is absolutely necessary. Nice thing about the ARP head studs, you'll never have to do it again. 2. Put the ARP moly thread lube on the wider threads of each stud. This is the threaded side that does not have the hex head on it, just a point. They are much coarser than the other side threads, and will be going into the block. 3. Hand thread all the studs into the proper block holes. The middle row, front and back holes get the shorter of the fat ones (4 total). Remember the bolts you pulled out of these, they were shorter. The top row gets the smallest studs. Then all the rest get the largest studs. 4. Now you want to bottom all studs out against the block. Use an allen wrench, hex bit, or double-nut to get them all the way in. Bottom them out, then STOP, do not apply any further torque. On about 50% of mine, I hit some very hard spots threading them in, even though the holes were perfectly clean. After getting by this tough spot though, they go right in no problem. It is very easy to tell the difference between hard turning and bottomed out, they will come to a very firm stop when you're done. 5. Apply moly lube to the top threads on all the studs. 6. Install your gaskets, then carefully install the heads. Don't drag the head across the studs, you could hurt a valve. Get it positioned over the studs, and slowly lower it down, making sure its not catching. You should not have to force them down, if so they are catching on something, lift a bit and try again. 7. Before installing the heads you obviously made sure there was nothing sticking in the way, but to make sure feel around the head to make sure no wires or anything got caught between the head and the block. 8. Lube the threads on the nuts, the bottom
faces of the nuts, and both sides of the washers. Install one
washer and nut of proper size on each stud. The lube actually
makes this easier, they'll stick to your finger so you can get them on
easier.
9. Torque in the order provided by the Helms manual, but NOT to their torque specs. Instead, for all larger studs, torque to 65 ft-lbs, then loosen, torque again to 65, loosen again, and torque one final time to 65. Do this procedure on each stud before moving on. This is called pre-stretching, it gives a more accurate long-term torque reading. For the smaller top row of bolts, torque to 22 ft-lbs using the same procedure above. These ones need a deep socket and/or extension to clear the heads. Note if you have an iron block, add 5 ft-lbs to both these numbers. 10. Loosen all the nuts by a few turns. Take your hex key/allen wrench and tighten all the studs down, the pre-stretching procedure can back them out a bit. You want to make sure the nuts are backed off enough so they don't stop the stud from bottoming out again. 11. Tighten all large diameter studs in the Helm order to 20 ft-lbs. 12. Tighten all large diameter studs in the Helm order to 40 ft-lbs. 13. Tighten all large diameter studs in the Helm order to 65 ft-lbs. 14. Go over them all again at 65 ft-lbs. 15. Wait 30 mins and make one final pass at 65 ft-lbs. Make sure you get NO give/movement on any of the nuts this time. If so finish this pass and repeat step 15 until there is no give. 16. Tighten the smaller studs to 22 ft-lbs in the Helm order. Go over them 1 or 2 more times. |