Any possible way to see if head bolts have been replaced?

[96cobrasvt]

Bought my 04 6.0 with 130k. It is 4x4 crew cab lariat auto with an sct programer on the performance setting. is there any possible way to tell if the head bolts have been replaced with a set of head studs. Thanks

[wingnut]

sure...pull a valve cover, unless you can get your paws on one of them camera scope thingys and run it down into your oil fill tube

[melmount]

there should be a couple of bolts or studs visable on the outside by the exhaust manifolds holding the heads on. Look to see if its a stud with a nut or a bolt.

[SickStroke6.0]

Look just below the driver's side valve cover, and you will see either a bolt or a 12 point stud (if you have studs.).

Here is a pic of my studs:

[wingnut]

holy crap...awesome that you can see em that easily

[jhmason21]

I was wondering about this myself, I bought mine with 140k on her, went outside and checked, no such luck, dang thought I might get luck

[jstokes1987]

I was talking to a guy at swamp's diesel and gathering some info, and he said if its not puking coolant or any other familiar symptoms then there is no need to get studs. he also told me they do it cab on and use the h-11 studs, they just put them in one at a time. I asked about the arp's and he told me they dont even mess with em. i was quoted right around 1500 bucks for studs and an egr delete. dont fix wut aint broke.

[FastFocus]

that's the 2nd person i've hard of in KY that says ARP's are junk... interesting, since soo many people are making so much power with them....

[jstokes1987]

Originally Posted by FastFocus

that's the 2nd person i've hard of in KY that says ARP's are junk... interesting, since soo many people are making so much power with them....

i kinda wondered the same thing when he told me that. i only know wut ive heard about them on here, and ive heard nothing but good things. anything is better than stock though.

[PGreenSVT]

Yes the H11's are a bit stronger than the ARP's. If your building a race truck with 50psi of boost by all means go for the H11's. The ARP's are more than 99% of us will ever need. The recommendation of forget the ARP's and use H11's but then doing them one at a time without pulling the head, changing the gaskets, and verifying the head is truly flat and straight is ludicrous. I wouldn't expect that from Swamps. Use the best studs available but do a half a$$ed install doesn't make any sense to me at all.