Exhaust Stainless Alllen Socket Heads

i use ss allen head bolts with lock washers on my headers and never have a leak. For iron heads you want 1" and for alum heads normally 3/4" long bolts.

The SS Allen head bolts work good and lasts a long time...

In the day of my youth I was an aircraft mechanic, so I still do some things that way. The bolt heads were drilled with a #52 drill bit (about .040) using a drill press and lots of WD40 to cool the bit. The head is drilled with the holes in a cross pattern at 90 degree angles to each other.

The bolts are 3/8 -16 thread stainless steel Allen head, 7/8" or 3/4" long depending on the thickness of the header flange that is on your headers.

I bought a 5/16" Bondhus Balldriver Allen wrench, it works like a universal joint. You can tighten up the Allen head bolts at 15-20 degrees off center angle and still get everything tight. Cut the "L" part off the wrench with a cutoff wheel and stuck the straight part in an Allen socket. This works great, because the Allen heads are smaller than even the 12 point bolt heads, and with my fancy tool I can tighten them up with a torque wrench.

Torque the bolts down and pull off about 12" of .032 stainless steel safety wire. Thread the wire through 2 holes, or just one if the other one is blocked by the header pipe. Pull the wire through until the ends are even. Twist up about 2" with your handy-dandy safety wire twister pliers, making sure that the wire pulls the bolt tighter as it routes across the header pipe. Make sure the twist ends at the wire hole in the next bolt, and that it pulls the bolt in the tightening direction. Thread it through and twist up about 3/4"of wire on the other side of the hole and cut it off evenly. Fold it over about midway so that the sharp end doesn't stick you.

The safety wire takes about 10-15 minutes a header pipe to do right and make it look good. The driver's side is easy, but you have to remove the mass air & smog pump air plumbing on the passenger side to have room to work.

You old guys...

madspeed said:

You old guys...

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We prefer finely aged their sonny