ARP Main Stud Problem

[jgauspohl]

I have called Enjuku, Phase 2, and basically every other qualified race shop I know of and asked them about the arp main stud problem on rwd sr's. It seems they all have had this problem but I come to Nico and there's no thread telling of this problem. I'm going to take pics. They told me the last 2 main bolts need to be trimmed/machined down 1-2mm to give adequate clearance. This info all comes after I have liquid gasket and torqued the whole upper oil pan down...yeah it sucks that I have to scrape and do it again. Anyway if anyone has anything to add to this thread please feel free to do so or Moderators please at least stick a thread regarding this problem @ the top of the forums...so other won't run into this hassle.

[240TweakerNewbee]

Welcome to my world; I would be more surprised if you said they fit perfectly. I would say 60% or better of the after market "performance" parts for the SR are either made for a different car (which makes modifying a necessity) or they were made with SAE pattern threads (which makes it almost fit, just with a little cross threading; example: flexible steel braded turbo lines from enjuku). It’s been my experience that these resellers do absolutely no research and have no idea if these parts actually fit; they just go off of what they hear from someone who said they put it on their SR and it works just fine. I can’t count how many times I’ve had to cut, bend, and weld these parts just so they somewhat work... all at the complete disbelief of the importer/reseller. If you notify them of the problem, they will always tell you something along the lines of: We have it working on our shop SR, or, are you sure you put it on right?, or oh yeah, its not included in the manual but you have to do a little cutting to get it to work, or you need to make some brackets (Greddy S14 FMIC).

What this all boils down to is: marketing hype and greed are getting the best of the aftermarket support. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to dog them out of existence; I just wish they would get their act together so I can increase the performance of my vehicle AND maintain its reliability factor.

[Nismo_Freak]

You put an S14 intercooler on an S13 and are complaining about having to make brackets?

The parts are aftermarket, and the car was not designed to account for their space. Sometimes you have to modify things to fit properly, and to someone that is willing to do that, it may not be such a big deal.

[jgauspohl]

stick the part about the arp main studs....that's a big difference from an intercooler...it's tolerances/clearances in the motor....and that's a big deal when you're forking out your paychecks for your "baby"...plus tolerances and clearances will hit your wallet pretty hard....trust me I had to fork out 175 bucks for a rocker/valve shim tool...granted that's cheaper than the Nissan tool but still. At least make a thread and stick it somewhere easily seen for people that run into the same problem. And yeah the ARP guy was like ...ughh never heard of that problem....whereas basically every shop that's fully built an sr knew of the problem. If it saves 30 minutes of torque specs and liquid gasket it's worth it ....time is money.

[180fan]

The main studs need to be shaved down to almost where the hex disappears. I'm using ARP main studs on my own SR and the last two on the intake side (IIRC, but you can pretty easily take a look at where the pan hits) need to be cut down. It's a problem I hit a little over a year ago. It's no biggie. Lathe em off.

[Nismo_Freak]

stick the part about the arp main studs....that's a big difference from an intercooler...it's tolerances/clearances in the motor....and that's a big deal when you're forking out your paychecks for your "baby"...plus tolerances and clearances will hit your wallet pretty hard....trust me I had to fork out 175 bucks for a rocker/valve shim tool...granted that's cheaper than the Nissan tool but still. At least make a thread and stick it somewhere easily seen for people that run into the same problem. And yeah the ARP guy was like ...ughh never heard of that problem....whereas basically every shop that's fully built an sr knew of the problem. If it saves 30 minutes of torque specs and liquid gasket it's worth it ....time is money.

1. You should have given it a better title so that other people can search for it.2. People don't bother reading the stickies anyways.

[jgauspohl]

it seems that if you were having this problem...you would type arp main stud in ....and this ...might just come up. Well that sucks that people don't read stickies....I know I do.

[Nismo_Freak]

Well, yes, people would.

Your original title didn't have anything but "Moderators Please Sticky!" ... which I changed to "ARP main stud problem".

Now you can find this thread regardless of how you search.

[jgauspohl]

thanks you rock. Sorry I was thinking it searched the bodies too...forgot you have to put that in...I'm a googler' my bad.

[Nismo_Freak]

thanks you rock. Sorry I was thinking it searched the bodies too...forgot you have to put that in...I'm a googler' my bad.

It will search bodies, but it's faster and I believe it's also the default to search titles.