what did you get for a gasket kit? I only put my headers on a year or so ago, and they are the metal gm gaskets, which I think are fine to reuse. I hear you have to swap bolts for heads, can't use same ones??? Please let me know what I need, and what you guys got. This is my first heads/cam install. Thanks guys.

 

Spend the bucks one time. Get an ARP head stud kit. Factory bolts are a pain to get out then you have to throw them away because they are torque to yeild style bolts and permanently stretch when properly torqued. The studs thread into the block so you don't get any thread wear, they are reusable so if you change up later or something goes wrong you're not out for yet another set of head bolts, you don't ever have to clean out the bolt holes in the block ever again, and the heads come off and go on easier.
For gaskets I went with Thunder Racings cam swap kit because I already had some late model GM MLS head gaskets. I think that they have a head swap kit too.

 

Thanks AL. I appreciate it.

 

yeah...thanks al...

i maybe doing similar work soon. gotta love TTY bolts

so the ARPs are reusable...hmmm...

 

hey those arp's are $230.00!?!? Is that right?

 

yep....top of the line bolts...and reusable.

sucks but i will say it's worth it...head bolts are pretty important!

comes out to about $500 for gasket kit and ARP bolts

 

AAAAHHHHH!!!! teke, this is costing me WAY more than I initially thought. Isn't there a better route to go? $230 for bolts is INSANE. Why are they so expensive?

 

you can get the normal stock replacement ones...i think TR sells them in the full gasket kit for like $350

a cheaper way to do what??

speed costs money...how fast do you wanna go??

 

The GM bolt set costs ~$25/head. When I swapped out my lifters, I bought new head gaskets and the two bolt sets (one for each head). I ended up using a bit of high-temp rtv around the old water pump gaskets - just because I forgot to order them. But it's been about a month now and no problems yet.

If you just want re-usability, you could go with the regular ARP head bolts instead of the studs and that would save you almost $100. But cleaning out the bolt holes is time consuming. I'm not sure if the ARP bolts use any sort of threadlocker like the stockers do. You'll be cleaning crap out of the bolt holes anyway the first time you take off the heads. You won't see a benefit unless you take them off again.

I've also seen two ARP head studs snap, leaving part of stud below the deck of the block. I'm not saying they were installed correctly (I don't know), but it's a scenario I don't want to deal with.