I've been lurking here for a while and just recently joined so I could search. I've been searching for a couple days and found some info on retorqueing head bolts after replacing the head gasket.
I've got 1600 miles on a new felpro stock head gasket with ARP bolts that were torqued to 70ft/lbs in the TSRM sequence. I used 5 passes, if I remember I went hand tight (no rachet), rachet tight then 20, 35, 50, 65, 70. That was over 6 months ago with 1600 hard miles. I ran a block test and a compression test at 1200 miles. Block test was negative, and compression test looked like this 185, 185, 182, 181, 180, 183 thats 1-6 cylinders. I did that comp test on 6/23/07. I also did one before the head gasket and 4 and 5 were in the 170's. now they are 180+. Not using any coolant, overflow bottle behaving normal. No smoke at startup or WOT, no mixing coolant in oil blah blah basically running perfect.
Now I know what alot of the top dogs here say, back them loose just like 10-15ft/lbs and then retorque one at a time. But I don't like the sound of that. And I also read that some people just put a torque wrench on them to see if they still hold XXft/lbs which I read is not correct because of static friction or something. This is what I was going to do. I have a digital snap-on torque wrench and new cam cover gaskets and grommets. What should I do? Just get in there and put 70ft/lbs or should I back them off and torque one at a time? I would think if they were loose, they would be loose as in less than 70ft/lbs? Like I said the car is running flawlessly, except for the occasional scrapeage because my car is too low.
Any tips, tricks, past experiences, bitch slaps, flames are welcome!
I've got 1600 miles on a new felpro stock head gasket with ARP bolts that were torqued to 70ft/lbs in the TSRM sequence. I used 5 passes, if I remember I went hand tight (no rachet), rachet tight then 20, 35, 50, 65, 70. That was over 6 months ago with 1600 hard miles. I ran a block test and a compression test at 1200 miles. Block test was negative, and compression test looked like this 185, 185, 182, 181, 180, 183 thats 1-6 cylinders. I did that comp test on 6/23/07. I also did one before the head gasket and 4 and 5 were in the 170's. now they are 180+. Not using any coolant, overflow bottle behaving normal. No smoke at startup or WOT, no mixing coolant in oil blah blah basically running perfect.
Now I know what alot of the top dogs here say, back them loose just like 10-15ft/lbs and then retorque one at a time. But I don't like the sound of that. And I also read that some people just put a torque wrench on them to see if they still hold XXft/lbs which I read is not correct because of static friction or something. This is what I was going to do. I have a digital snap-on torque wrench and new cam cover gaskets and grommets. What should I do? Just get in there and put 70ft/lbs or should I back them off and torque one at a time? I would think if they were loose, they would be loose as in less than 70ft/lbs? Like I said the car is running flawlessly, except for the occasional scrapeage because my car is too low.
Any tips, tricks, past experiences, bitch slaps, flames are welcome!