Yes. Checking them with a stretch gauge would also be a good idea. ARP sells the gauges (other brands are also available). Any "good" machine shop would have these gauges also, and shouldn't charge you much, if anything, to check them!

90laserRSfwd said:

Yes. Checking them with a stretch gauge would also be a good idea. ARP sells the gauges (other brands are also available). Any "good" machine shop would have these gauges also, and shouldn't charge you much, if anything, to check them!

Click to expand...

They were torqued to 90ft/lb 3 times do you think they would be stretched to far?

I have no way of knowing honestly, neither does anyone else. Chances are VERY likely that they are 100% usable. BUt the only real way to tell is measure. Keep in mind people, myself included, have reused the same ARP studs in multipule engines, a few times over with no problems. Just buy them and check, or buy new.

I would never buy used head studs. They are so cheap new why risk it, especially with black friday sales coming up soon. Also you cannot check stud stretch if you didnt measure them brand new and know the original values. There are different variances and tolerances with batches so you cant measure them against a different set.

They could be stretched, even if proper steps were used to torque them. sometimes its easy to see, look at the threaded portion, if it looks like an hour glass, then stretched they are. If not, id still be weary of used ones. I'd just buy new ones as cheap as they are..

My car is waiting on me to change the head gasket now because I used stock head bolts and was pushing 28, 29 psi with 16g turbo. Tune was done at boostin performance so I'm confident it was good. 2 things I did wrong, I did not chase the threads in the block or use arp studs. It's no small job to change this so I'll be using L-19 studs and will chase threads this time. I agree with what some others have said. Get new it's not worth the risk using used ones. Just my opinion. Good luck

The cost to put new head studs is worth it for all the work your going to do and not have to worried about it.Peace of mind.