Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin Panzino
Regarding one speedmaster product.. A customer brought over an LS block for me to hone. He also brought his new speedmaster head studs to use with my deck plate. I was absolutely stunned at the low quality of those studs. No efffing way they were anywhere near 190,000 psi or the properly hardened material. The torque response felt odd, quite 'spongy' and sure enough when I removed the deck plate and the studs over half of them had started rolling the threads and almost all the nuts could not be spun off by hand after loosening, had to run them off with a socket the rest of the way. And all of the black oxide was gone in the thread area. Total and complete junk.
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I had the same issue with a 440 Chrysler main girdle kit I bought for a street motor. The girdle itself was fine, but the main studs did exactly what you described. Some of the nuts were so tight on the studs that backing them off with a socket just turned the entire stud out. The company that sold this kit stated the studs were made for them by a leading US manufacturer who's stuff is used in probably every engine raced on this forum.
I would have never found the problem had I just assembled the motor off the machinist's clearances after the line hone. I found tolerances varying +/- .005 on every main cap when I mic'd them. I replaced the studs with
known ARP pieces and had the exact same, and correct clearance down every main. I'm sure the machinist had these pieces in and out of the block to have correctly performed the line hone, but they were only seemingly good for one use.