I am installing a Berk high flow cat and having troubling understanding the springs bolts. People are saying do not compress them? I tightened them down and torqued them to 35 ft lbs.

Does this look right? Thank you!

 

Seems fine, i always just snug them up there suppose to flex a little. Long as it doesnt leak i wouldnt worry about it!

 

You don't want the springs to be fully compressed but yours look kind of ok.
If you want to unload the springs slightly you could ad a couple of washers in between.
35 ft lb is way to tight btw, these bolts should only need 16 ft lb.

 

Thank you guys for your feedback.

 

The bolts have a shoulder. The nut tightens against that shoulder (well, against the flange which is against the shoulder), and how tihht the nut is doesn't affect how much the springs are compressed.

You can even see this shoulder in those photos. Its the bulge in bolt where it meets flange.

So torque to same value as stock bolts. Or just good n tight by hand. So long as it won't vibe loose its fine, and springs will be compressed the correct amount either way.

 

Looks fine, though slightly overcompressed. As stated, if it doesn't vibrate and doesn't leak, you're good.

 

Back them off and properly torque them. They're on springs to allow expansion/contraction of the joint caused the temperature swings these parts go thru.

As Flanders noted these bolts should be torqued to 16 (sixteen) lb-ft. Yours are massively over-tightened. Only take you five minutes to get them right. Center jack the front end, slide in the jackstands, go under and loosen, then torque.

-- Chuck

 

I don't think that backing them off and performing a re-torque to the correct spec will help in this case as the flange on the HFC is now bent, just an observation.

 

The bolt butts up to the rear side of the header flange, and the nut installs on the front side of the header flange. So the torque is between the nut and the wide flare of the bolt . The spring parts of the bolt are unaffected by torque. Over torque of the nut simply stretches the very end of the bolt and it doesn't really affect the spring seating I would still torque it to 16 ft lbs so the bolt end doesn't break from being over stretched.

 

Could be the camera angle but the sheet metal flange does appear distorted.

-- Chuck