Totally stainless chassis bolt kit

[67bird]

Has anyone used a Totally Stainless brand chassis bolt kit for a first gen Camaro or Firebird? I have the stainless body bolt kit from Prodigy and it looks great, now I am needing all the chassis bolts. I know that places like Classic Industries sell the Chassis kits for Camaro's and such, but these have the stock t-bolts and such for the springs. I noticed that Totally Stainless lists a chassis kit, but its like $499.00 in their catalog. Just wondering if anyone had used one? Thx.

[MuscleRodz]

Be careful when using stainless in load bearing areas, its tensile strength is not as strong as the original and can fail if used in the wrong areas

[ProdigyCustoms]

Yeah, we do not include the frame bolts on purpose. Go to the hardware store and get grade 8 stuff.

[protour73]

Frank and Mike....I need to jump in here......I have the Totally Stainless Chassis Bolt kit on my car. Totally Stainless states that their hardware is Grade 8 or greater, and I made sure of this. There is no way that I was putting less than Grade 8 in a critical area like the body bushings!!

A note to 67bird....when you order that kit, and I don't understand why.....but I found out the hard way that T/S does NOT include the 2 Core Support bolts in that kit. Only the 4 frame bolts, so make sure you order those additional 2 bolts, or you'll be scratching your head, like I did.

Scott

[MuscleRodz]

Frank and Mike....I need to jump in here......I have the Totally Stainless Chassis Bolt kit on my car. Totally Stainless states that their hardware is Grade 8 or greater, and I made sure of this. There is no way that I was putting less than Grade 8 in a critical area like the body bushings!!

A note to 67bird....when you order that kit, and I don't understand why.....but I found out the hard way that T/S does NOT include the 2 Core Support bolts in that kit. Only the 4 frame bolts, so make sure you order those additional 2 bolts, or you'll be scratching your head, like I did.

Scott

Correct there is stainless fastners available with equivilent tensile strengths as Grade 8, just was not aware that there kit used it. You have to be careful with what some companies sell and don't mention. I have used Totally Stainless engine dress up kits in the past with no problems, but never a chassis kit. The only other thing to be careful of is to make sure to use anti-seeze on all the threads.

[67bird]

Pro-tour 73 thanks for the heads up on the radiator support bolts. I have a DSE kit that covers that. I am needing a chassis bolt kit, and it seems all thats out there is a reproduction bolt kit from AMK. I did notice that Totally Stainless also lists kits for the DSE subframes so they must know what going on with the bolt strength. I know that the kit is expensive, but a regular kit from a vendor is like $250 just for the regular reproduction stuff.

[67bird]

All joking aside, maybe if there was enough interest maybe we could talk someone into making a kit for us folks who want something nicer than the repro stuff, or look like we raided a bolt bin at Fastenal.

[JChilders]

I spoke to totally stainless about the chassis bolt kit. They said the kit is so expensive because the hardended stainless is expensive. I also know that SC&C offers a stainless option for their suspension kits.

[1969CamaroRS]

There is always the ARP stainless stuff better than grade 8, not sure if you can get it that large for frame bolts.

[wmhjr]

I have the Totally Stainless kit for my pontiac. I have not installed all of it yet, but the load bearing/critical bolts are "hardened". There is no SAE spec such as grade 8 for stainless, but all involved (including ARP) have indicated that the "hardened" stainless is equal to Grade 8. If I'm not mistaken, I think some of the stuff I've gotten from Totally Stainless is sourced from ARP. They provide the location of manufacturing for each component if asked or ordered separately. The one thing to make sure of is that you use anti-sieze, and adjust torque values correspondingly. SC&C sources from Totally Stainless. I'm using this stuff pretty much everywhere. It is ridiculous expensive, but IMHO it's worth it. FWIW, Doc at Totally Stainless has been excellent to work with. I highly recommend them.