With the mods listed in my sig, am i messing with fire by not having studs or am i safe for the time being?

 

probaly not but for 400 bucks there well worth it. its gonna cost you 2 times that if your hg goes. too much timing,,cylinder pressure, drive pressure, boost and drugs all will cause a hg to go. the mls gaskets are pretty incredible though compared to the 2nd gens. i say put them in.

 

The rule of thumb is 50psi boost. The only bad part about studs is the cost of install. It is quite labour intensive.

Kevin

 

X2 judge. its a relatively inexpensive way to give your HG some protection

brett

 

There is alot more to it than boost alone. Ive replaced 2 hg's on my truck. Put the studs in. Its an easy install... Alot easier than taking the head off.

 

Agreed!

also agreed you need studs.

 

I am personally of the thought that if you put in studs you should pull the head and put in a new gasket,, hence why I say it is rather labour intensive... I know that there are plenty of guys out there that have done it without pulling the head, but there just is too much chance for my liking

Kevin

 

The general rule of thumb is that if you properly replace each stud one at a time with the seated head gasket in place then you don't have to retorque the studs after a couple thousand light foot miles of heating and cooling cycles. If you put in a new head gasket be prepared to retorque at least once which means taking the valve cover off and removing at least the exhaust rockers every time. I retorqued twice and each time there were looser studs. ks

 

I checked mine here before the weekend, and they all seemed to be good,, but I am going to keep my eyes on that

Kevin