I bought a dropout motor/trans combo to swap my car over and went through the motor and found that it was built and a 2.3L. I've been driving the car all this year but I'm getting ready to put a 6262 or 6765 on it to make around 700-800 whp. I'll be revving it to around 7500-8000 rpms and was curious if I need to upgrade the stock main bolts to arp studs at that power level. I know several people such as stm have made some serious power on a completely stock 2.0 but I want this motor to last a year or two.

I tried to search but I couldn't find anyone dumb enough who built their motor without upgrading the main bolts.

 

People would say to replace your main studs, but i read a thread where DAvid Buschur Said he will not use Arp main studs

He didn include y tho

 

On DSMs, the ARP main bolts needed a main bearing alignment dowel kit, because the bolt shanks were marginally smaller in diameter than the stock ones, and allowed fretting to take place. I can't tell you whether that is also true for Evo blocks, but it might be.

Rod bolts undergo different stresses than main bearing bolts. Stock rod bolt failures are well known; I don't know that I've ever seen a main bolt failure reported...

 

Well I guess if it blows I'll know lol.