I am wanting to go with a nice set of studs for my valve covers and noticed there are a few options there from stainless to nitride coated, ect. What is best if they are going into aluminum heads and do I need anti-gall or what ever that stuff is called?
Use antisieze on everything that goes into aluminum. Cheap insurance to protect the threads. Pick whatever you think looks best, as the bolts are a low torque.. To much and it just bends the rails on the valve covers and squishes out gaskets, especially if using cork.
I don't think material matters too much. But if you had to pick... Aluminum bolts to go into aluminum heads I'd say? No galvanic corrosion (contact of dissimilar metals), no stress caused by thermal expansion and you can get nice finishes from anodizing. I dunno, first thing that came to my mind.
It's gunna sound bad and the opposite direction your going but I grabbed a few extra valve cover bolts to eliminate the studs sticking up and scuffed them up popped then threw some cardboard and laid down a couple coats of hammered rustolem hammered silver Sent from the future
I like the studs. Not worried about them scratching up the bottom of the valve covers or its lid. Just makes it easier to slap them on IMO. Curious how do you use both the anti-seize and lock-tight? Not on the valve covers mind you but I was thinking more about the intake when I put it together hopefully shortly.
Yea they look cool I just always associated them with high torque areas normally. If I really just wanted to go for looks ARP makes a really beautiful polished stainless set of studs but I just can't justify $60 to hold down the valve covers. I still like the idea of stainless on the gloss black valve covers so I found a boss set for $14 that is on its way now. So again now how do I apply anti-seize and locktight to get both to work? Does it matter how it goes on? As I think about it everything on top of the motor basically mounts to aluminum.
