So I had a nightmarish situation happen to me the other day and broke an arp stainless 12 point exhaust bolt off in my aluminum lq4 head. I managed to drill the stud but had to heli coil the thread. The heads must have been painted as they're brand new but the bolt broke off taking it out! I thought I stalled the thread but I'm not sure, I was slowly removing the stud with hand tools.

This leads me to thinking is anyone running a stud and copper nut? I saw this on my Volkswagen before and it seemed like a really nice idea and you end up trashing copper nuts instead of your heads haha.

Also as far as manifold gaskets are concerned are MLS the way to go? I've head of some guys using a layer of copper rtv and thats it.

Thanks

 

High temp anti seize. I can see studs for the manifolds causing in vehicle removal and install to be a real pain.

 

A nice flat surface and the OE MLS gaskets are best.

 

First, don't use stainless steel into bare aluminum. They just don't pair well together. "Galvanic Corrosion" is the result. That's why no OEM uses SS into aluminum. Ever.
For gasket, either use the stock LMS or high temp RTV. On LS turbos ive used the stock MLS so far without problems (yet).

 

I make sure the flange is flat and use a thin loop of right stuff silicone.

 

Copper silicone here.

 

I like the oem mls gaskets for the ls stuff, but like most everyone else, I've had good luck with copper rtv as long as everything fits up good.