Felpro head gasket kit from auto zone... good idea?

[(Yoshi)]

Hey I am replacing rings on my piston and will have to replace the head gasket and want to know if the felpro head gasket kit from auto zone is a good idea. Also how many times can you re-use head studs?

[Brandon93240]

The felpro is a good replacement, just make sure ur kit comes with the correct valve cover gasket. A few kits have the frontier vc gasket that will not work with ur cover. Also are u referring to ARP studs or the factory bolts?

[(Yoshi)]

factory bolts

also do you need to put liquid gasket on the felpro head gasket?

[Brandon93240]

No liquid gasket is nec. People have reused the factory bolts, I wouldn't personally unless money is an issue and its just to get the car back together. The arp studs are around 1 bill for the headstuds I believe. I definetely recommend the arp's. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think nissanfanatic is using arps and a felpro hg with a stock bottom end and he puts down around 400 or so without issues. The factory bolts can be had fairly cheap also, but if ur going to spend money on new ones why not a little more for alot more u know?

[LingeringSuicide]

I work at a factory that builds engines... if the head bolts get over torqued they are thrown out and never reused. Mostly due to the fact that you are putting stress on the threads by over tighting them to use the excess force for hold the head down. With the temp changes on them how reliable do you honestly think those threads are. Save yourself the time and replace them because if one of the bolts breaks off into the block youll be spending some more $ at a machine shop getting the block fixed.

[krazydriver]

don't worry about using a felpro at all.

AMS performance uses the felpro gasket and ARP hardware on their built ka24 short blocks.

And their selling them as being good for 500 HP. So you know the felpro HG has got to be good if they're using it