How to keep your Bolts in good condition?
 

I hear alot of Bolts shearing on turbo, and exhaust manifold.

How do you guys get away with problem like that?

- Unscrew them once in a while and put some hi heating production geese on them?

antisieze and stainless steel hardware.

If a bolt looks like crap, i just replace it sometimes if I have to take it out anyway. When bolts have sheared or snapped for me, ive drilled and either tapped or used a nut/bolt combo if possible. Sometimes it can be a real pain though, but so far ive been lucky. Also a penetrating lubricant sprayed onto bolts occasionally cant hurt anything.

Oh and if you are lucky enough to see it on shelves, see if you can find a graphite spray (basically graphite in solution). When i got all my bolts off, i spray em all down with that stuff and it helps em not get stuck next time i want to remove them. However there is only one shop locally that I know carries it. Its also good for a nice looking coating on the turbo and manifold that doesnt discolor, but can wash off easily with mineral spirits.

Stainless steel is a bad idea......if it ever breaks, good luck getting it out.....even with an easy out. It is just to damn hard for an area that will see 2000 degrees and constantly be expanding and contracting.

I use metric grade 10 studs with standard washers and locking copper nuts (all purchased from atp turbo, listed under fastners) on my turbo to manifold and downpipe to turbo connections.

This way...the first thing to fail is usually going to be the nut (copper is soft). I don't know about you.....but I would much rather put on a new nut than pull a stud out of a manifold/turbo.

I have 4000 miles on this set-up (since initial kit installation) and they have not backed off at all (not even a little bit, and I check them very regularly).....even with an unsupported stock downpipe/midpipe (i did not re-install the bracket to the transmission when I installed the kit).

Look on the german and itallian turbocharged supercars....they run copper locking nuts from the factory :cool:

I did a lot of reasearch in this before my install and this seemed to be the best way to go....zero problems or complaints so far :bigtu:

sounds like a pretty solid plan sactown. On another note, would you wanna hit up a SF or castle airbase autocross together sometime this season? Sry for the threadjack.

akaryrye - Thanks for the vote of confidence! I am more of a mountain road/drift person myself.....but I would love to go to an autocross for my first time!

Where in cali do you stay? I almost built a gt2554r based set-up instead of going for the Greddy.....so I have got to check out your set-up :bigtu:

PM me and we can arrange something.

The bolts I use to secure the turbine housing to the CHRA are the ones that came in my rebuild kit. In all the turbo's I've worked on, I've never had an unfixable problem with those. They usually take a day or two soaked in Liquid Wrench, overnight in the freezer, and then liberal application of a torch, but they always come out cleanly. I rounded off the corners of a few, but vice-grips are very persuasive.

I've never FAILED to have a problem with the studs in the manifold or turbine housing. I've tried several types of nuts and they all seem to go on fine. I've never had a problem with nuts loosening. But without fail, when I go to take the nuts off, they end up damaging the threads on the majority of my studs. I've started cleaning the threads thoroughly before backing the nuts off, and they still get damaged. I've never had a problem like this before.

I've heard that there's nothing you can apply (thread-locker or anti-seize) that will stand up to the heat on the turbine side.

Hopefully, this time is the last time I've got my turbo off for awhile... but I'm definitely going to look into the brass option as suggested.

I replace the studs that hold my turbo to the manifold every few years. Mostly a peace of mind thing.

If studs are shearing on a regular basis, it may be due to the base of the turbo expanding as it gets hot and putting stress on the studs from the side. Larger holes in the turbo base for the studs to come through would help there.

So for the studs, sactown, are these the right ones?

http://www.atpturbo.com/Merchant2/me...egory_Code=FST

and then the corresponding copper locknuts?

I have been told that high grade bolts are stronger than SS. I accidentally used one lower grade bolt on the downpipe and it broke cleanly off. Otherwise, I have never had problems using the highest grade bolt I can, on any of my turbo cars over many years.

I was also going to go SS it just sounds so good. (for boats) well I learned anyway it is good but not the best.
I just went to an industrial hardware store and they matched the stock hardware.
I also remeber the guy telling me the stock nuts and bolts that came with the greddy had no markings making them illegal? He said it was a good idea to replace it.