There are holes in the heads for 6 bolts per flange. I would be willing to bet the bolts you are missing broke off flush with the head. If you can get to them use a left handed drill bit and hope they back out before you drill all the way through them. Is the drivers side near the firewall broken too?

 

That must be the problem. Its funny though that on both the driver and passenger side the bolts would be broken off at all four corners. Looks like I am gonna have to take the headers off again to fix the problem. This is gonna suck, all of the ones broken off are in the hardest places to get to.

 

I have a feeling that these are going to be really hard to get out considering I have to do four of them. Maybe I should get the heads ported and polished and get them to drill out the bolts while the heads are off. How much would that cost and what kind of performance gain could I expect?

 

You can get to all the bolts with the fender liners out except the drivers side near the firewall has about 2" between the firewall and head. It is a common problem on trucks more than a few years old. If you do get the bolts out I would use ARP header studs with plenty of anti-sieze so you don't have to deal with this again.

Ported heads can range in price depending on how much work you want done. Also take into consideration the cost of the gaskets and new head bolts you need to re-install the heads. If you want to port the heads, talk to Richard at WCCH.

 

make sure your gaskets are on right.. i don't know about missing bolts, but i do know if the gaskets are on upside down, only six of the eight bolts will line up correctly.