The holes were countersunk down about 1/2" below the face of the flange. Threads had helicoils in them due to repeated repairs and buggered threads from broken off studs being drilled out and heat barbequing the mild steel threads. My diy manifold allows the thread holes to be extra deep. The first set of studs I got from BEGI were about 1/2" longer than the ones from track speed. They were not bottomed out in the holes as Corky suggests but they were double nutted and torqued in place. Also drilled and tapped small set screw holes in the flange 90 degrees to each stud. Set screws won’t allow studs to turn out.

Second set were from Track speed installed as Andrew said other than using helicoils in the holes before even using it for the first time on the car and they also have been entirely trouble free for over a year.

The material in the helecoils seems to hold up better to the heat for the threads cut in my mild steel flange. McMaster sells High temp nickel helicoils. In 10 and 15mm lengths. Bout the only thing I can say is they seem to work for me with my setup.
McMaster-Carr

C'mon bitches you missed my important question because of all your girlyfightingwords!

If you sold an M8 kit, I'd have bought 'em already.

There is an m8 prototype. EO2K has them. Message Andrew about it.

Too late. I have M8's from FM years ago.

Maybe not? Why NOT torque them a bit, to say, 10-15 ft*lbs?

Try it and post your results. I doubt anybody has welded in inconel studs.

Either way find the right filler.

That's what I'm leaning towards. 30 ft-lbs seems a lot for M8's.

I stock resbond so I dont typically do this but I have done it on manifolds which have had very poor damaged threads, its held up no trouble, TIG'd with 308L wire.

Dann

Thanks Dann I'll try the Resbond again first. I might have to hit you up for a bottle!

Cheers

I tigged one 8 mm FM in Inconel stud to a nut on my MSM turbo with L309 filer. Not structural, just three small tacks.
FM seems to be only real Inconel 8 mm option. They are pricey too considering no resbond and only 8 mm studs. The Trackspeed 10 mm are not bad at $155. If they made 8 mm I would have gone Trackspeed in a heartbeat.

I still want to try the Nissan 8 mm studs on my downpipe to turbo connection.

The points others have brought up about those studs and nuts aside, I've personally had those nord-lock washers fail completely when I tried them.

-Ryan

Nordlocks have failed on my street car.

how did the nordlocks fail?
I've never had them fail. They did not make non Inconel studs work at all, nothing did, but I've never had them fail by themselves.

Inconel studs nordlock and resbond worked for me as did inconel studs stage 8 and resbond. Both with helicoiled stud holes in a mild steel manifold.

I've had the AN hardened high strenght nuts fail miserbly as they shattered into pieces.

2x manifold studs backed out until they hit the manifold. 3x other nuts were loose on the studs.

With inconels, or SS studs?

--Ian

not inconels.

I had inconels ready to go in, but the shop that rebuilt my engine is a piece of shit - didn't install with the thread pitch I told them to install.

Shit, just realized these were manifold to block studs, not turbo to manifold studs. My post above is not relevant to this thread.

If you are seeing failures on the manifold/head hardware, your manifold is warped. The OEM hardware should work on every application (street to full race).

Full Race, you say? :D