Engine Bolt Beautification

[kaptainkw]

This may be kind of a silly post but I thought I would try. I'm putting an LS2 into a '68 Camaro Convertible with an Art Morrison subframe. None of that is really important except I'm adding billet pulleys, polishing brackets, alternators, etc.

What do you guys do to make the engine bolts purdy? They have factory anti-seize coating on them. I know I can buy chrome engine bolt kits but they don't include all the bolts one would need.

Is powder coating an option?
Can the bolt heads be dipped in chome solution?
Just painting them seems temporary at best.

What have you guys done?

[Lowend]

Don't do chrome...

I would start measuring bolts and order stainless stuff.
Use http://www.boltdepot.com/

[funbnme]

I bought an engine bolt kit from this place for my last car...it had everything needed.
http://www.totallystainless.com/

The only problem is that stainess bolts stretch out...they don't take a lot of torque, so I couldn't get some of them to work right. The upper intake bolts would loosen up and I couldn't get the valve cover bolts tight enough to stop oil from dripping.

Maybe you can get a high-strength stainless instead.

[parsonsj]

Right. Chrome is a no-no. SS is usually low tensile strength, though not always. ARP has some nice SS hardware with good strength characteristics.

Honestly, I like the look of factory bolts since they usually have flanged heads. Clean em up and use them.

One other option to consider is socket head cap screws (the blackened ones). They are usually minimally grade 8 (or whatever the metric equivalent is). They rust pretty quickly though.

jp

[camarobuilder]

ARP has some nice 12pt stuff for those motors.

[kaptainkw]

Thanks very much guys!