351W Head Bolts

Rusty67 said:

He is rounding the head of the bolt off because ARP bolts have a reduced head on the bold. They reduce them to the size of the shank. This requires extra effort when installing/torquing or removing if you aren't using an impact because there is less surface area to grab on the bolt and in high torque applications can cause some accident slippage/rounding.

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Exactly.

I'd rather not use studs because it's almost impossible to pull a head over the studs with the engine in the car. The factory bolts will hold just fine.

mstngjoe said:

I don't know if any of these places actually have the bolts in stock, but they have them on their respective websites:

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Thanks for the leads mstngjoe!!

no luck

I chased down all the leads from mstngjoe, as well as several others, and everyone drop ships them from Ford, which no longer stocks them. Too bad. All of them were very reasonably priced, one as low as $28.00!

If you order them from a Ford dealer they go for $5.80 each for the long bolts and $4.20 for the short bolts. With either tax or shippping that's over a C note for a full set.

As usual, my timing sucks. I placed an ad in the classified section, but if anyone has a good used set lying around they're willing to part with let me know.

That's good info on the new ARP studs. If I build another engine from the ground up I'll probably use them.

I have always been told that whatever you use during the honing process (on the torque plates) you also need to use during assembly. The stresses on the block are different for a stud vs a bolt. If I switch now I won't have as good a ring seal as I would with bolts.

Thanks for all the replies. Lots of good ideas.