I'm installing the head onto my block and have come across the notorious short hole. However, from the reading I've done, my hole is the middle on the intake side. Most others have experienced the drivers side on the intake side. I have my ARP bolt threaded as far as it will go and the part without threads still sticks above the head with the washer sitting on it. I can see part of the bolt that has no threads inside the head. I've gone over this with my machine shop and his thought is to either cut the bolt or drill the hole out more. His question is how much clearance is there before it goes into the coolant compartment? My thought is that with only about 5-6 threads actually threaded into the block, is this enough to snug the bitch down and not have a blown head gasket down the road? Less than half of the threads are actually going into the block and there isn't debris blocking the hole. I'e tried switching and using a different ARP bolt from the hole across from this one with the same sucess.

What do you guys suggest? I'm up for anything, I feel the right thing to do is to lug the whole thing back into him and have him drill the hole out.

Clean the bolt hole out. You have grime and shit in the hole resulting in the stud not threading all the way in.

Its not a casting issue.

Terry

What's the best way to go about cleaning it? Put something on the end of a long screw driver and work it in and out (sounds kinky). Spray some wd in there too and rag it?

Yeah, take a small screwdriver or a pick and loosen up the crud in there, then use a airhose to blow it out.

Terry

Thanks Terry,
I'll giver her a "blow" tomorrow and see if she can't suck some out for me!

This has been a long rebuild process, mainly waiting on parts to come in and finding out my block was bad and getting another block. Then I will be tackling the ms shortly after break in. I'm wiring everything while the motor is out. I ended up getting the ms setup you built bumpin talon. He never got a chance to install it. I'm going to be running 440's in it so I will have a little mods to do to the tables. I'll try to read more on that before I get there.

Thanks again Terry. I'll let you know how she blows tomorrow at some point.

You might also want to clean the threads with a tap before you install the stud, too.

Originally posted by DarkOne
You might also want to clean the threads with a tap before you install the stud, too.

x2, I ran into this problem with mine as well, there was a bunch of crap down there.