MATT DAMOND

Has anyone tried swapping the intake manifold bolts with exhaust manifold studs/nuts, and putting the intake manifold bolts on the exhaust manifold? I kinda did a test fit, and it seem that it might work. I was wondering if anyone has tried this, or uses a setup like this on their 944?

SamGrant951

I use intake manifold studs/nuts.

krystar

u mean doing away with the studs? yea i did this on mine cause i didn't have all the studs. i think it was a m8x1.5 bolt. ace hardware :P

DarylJ

Why would you do that? So you can get the exhaust off without pulling studs? Seems tight in there to begin with....I wonder how much fun it would be when the bolt is almost out of the exhaust side of the head.

krystar

but daryl, it's gonna be the same whether yer undoing a nut on a stud, or undoing a bolt hex head. only difference is that once the bolt is off, u don't have to jiggle around some more to get the flange past the stud.

931guru

Yeah, it's such a good idea, I wonder why Porsche didn't design it that way???

DarylJ

I guess - I was just thinking that I can easily get a box end wrench on a nut or bolt, but with a hex head.....
...yeah..that was my problem. And I didn't realize it until I was typing this. I'm thinking cheesehead/allen where you'd need the extra depth for the socket.

So, yeah...that would seem to make things a lot easier. I'm sure one of the engineers on here can tell us why it seems that everyone uses studs for exhaust though. There has to be some sort of reason, otherwise manufacturers wouldn't use a two piece fastener where a single piece would work. I'm guessing it has a lot to do with exhaust hardware rusting rapidly and the risk of breaking off a bolt head.

krystar

although it's not a good reason...one thing i can think of is that with a stud+nut, yer not moving anything on the block when you take it off. the part of the stud's thread inside the block is there...pretty much forever. less chance of stripping a thread. of course.....a typical consumer car will prob only have its exhaust manifold off maybe like....once in its lifetime?