^ what the title says.

 

According to this site, 26ft/lbs, but that is for manifolds not sure if headers require something else.
http://www.bfranker.badz28.com/fbody/torquespecs.htm

 

26 sounds about right considering they're going into aluminum and all that.

 

I always tighten them to PFT (pretty frickin tight). They will back out if they arent tight enough, this eliminates it (for me). I would be interested to see how you will get a torque wrench in there though, send a picture if you ever do!

 

I used to think like that, until I learned how bolts work. Bolts have an optimum ft/lb-age, which means at that ft/lb-age they work their best. Overtightening them doesn't do anything good at all (I've learned this the hard way on many occassions already). I'd rather retighten it a few times then strip the threads in my head .

and as for the torque wrench thing, i dont know how im going to get it in there either, haha.

 

I as well am a mechanical engineer with plenty of knowledge about bolts. Think about how big the flanges are on the header. This helps distribute the load from the head of the bolt and in my experiences I have never had a single problem with them yielding at all. I do use aftermarket header bolts, and replace them every few years. I have had the headers on though for 7 years without a single problem. To each his own, but in my experiences I have never been able to overtighten a single bolt given the small wrench (the only tool I have that will get to 3/4 of the bolts) and that I guess I have a hand tq wrench, I know how hard to tighten these things after years of doing it. The threads in your head seem tough to me to strip, thinking about it you would have to impact socket them on there to run into any real problems if you ask me.

This is just my .02 cents so take it for what its worth... I seriously do want a picture of a tq wrench in there though!!

 

Just to add to the good advice above, I'd recommend ditching the smaller .75" bolts and using 1" instead. I would say to use ARP bolts (but then everyone with a good aftermarket bolt from another manufacturer will chime in claiming theirs is better ). My point is I have had good results on several different engines (SBC, BBC) with just using the longer bolts.

BTW, good luck trying to use a TQ wrench on header bolts on an installed engine.

 

What kind of wrench do you use?

 

the usual 6" or so wrench... open ended on one side, closed on the other? Am I missing the point of the question?

Did the original poster repost as to what he did yet?