Ive been viewing this forum for some time and i see alot of you doing head gasket jobs or asking wierd common sense Q's (just ask the Mike guy thats always replying i bet he's tired of them)

if your a long time owner of a land rover like me ,doing a head gasket job will not be your last... these head bolts are plain rubbish! and you need to replace them per head removal job. but the new ones will only last another round of miles that you have and if your a heavy foot driver like i am they will be a even shorter life of them. I race mopars and chevys for years 340/350/440 and i put more horse power on them old engines to fly you to the moon. Ive also been around long enuff to have had a few builds on old buicks all alum. engines thats also in our rovers. they didnt make stretch bolts back then so why make these cheap thin bolts now?? to save money?? or to get more money out off you in repairs??

if your doing head gaskets take 2 bolts to napa and get true torq head bolts to match like i did and give them 80lbs torq it will last a looonnng time even with my 33's that im running on my disco2.. dont waste your time buying rubbish that there still learning from.

here is also a good read:
stretch bolts

 

You can use different bolts or studs from a variety of vendors, and you can use new stretch bolts, but main thing for newbies is not re-use old stretch bolts.

BTW, you must be the worlds greatest drag race mechanic, since a Saturn V produced about 175 million hp, close to what one million D1s could churn out.

 

thats funny you should say that, because atlantic british rep told me not to use steal bolts like from ARP. I felt the same way, cheap bolts may cause the need for another head gasket change.

 

It's funny how no-one on the Rover v8 engine forums in the UK ever use stretch bolts when building high-powerformance engines. Engine builders also don't use them unless the engine is stock.

They either use the SD1 style solid bolts, or ARP's on modifed motors, never the torque-to-yeild fasteners.



It only seems to be on stateside landrover forums, where there is this belief that ARP's on alloy engines are the worse thing ever...

I'll stick with my ARP's thankyou.