Damn boy they finally let you outta internet jail Welcome back.

 

I didn't read all of the pages yet so hopefully I'm not going back over something someone else wrote. When replacing the stock bolts and not checking the rods I've only used the Katech. All of the aftermarket rods I've used have had the ARP bolts in them. My only thought to this is that they really aren't needed in a 2001 and newer stock rod. The rod bolts were upgraded from GM for 01' and the problem bolts were no longer used. I've spun the 01' and up motors to 7200 or so many times over. Tomorrow I'll be dyno tuning an LS2 we just put a cam in and I'll be spinning to that 7k or so while tuning it without even thinking twice about it. Unless you plan to regularly go past 7k with it I'd just use the stock rod bolts. If you plan to really twist it $200 for rod bolts are cheap compared to the rest of the build. My recomendation would be to just leave the stock bolts in there.

 

I can understand why you would think that a 6.125” rod is the stock length as it is the common length aftermarket rod that just about everyone goes to for most builds that you see. However, the 6.098” rod is the stock length in all the LS style motors except the 4.8L at 6.275” and the LS7 which has 6.067” length rods. In some literature the standard rod length will be listed as 6.100”, but this is slightly off.

 

I just figured that since the engine was going to be apart and the rods removed, it would behoove me to replace the rod bolts since I'm already in there. You never know what the future holds...but with the setup that I'm currently planning, I know that the stock bolts will be fine, I won't be pushing a ton of power or spinning it that high. I guess we'll see how the wallet's doing when the time comes, if I can get more income coming in (via side jobs and whatnot), I'll build it stronger for the future. If I'm in my current financial state, I'll have to wait (as I"m doing) and build it on a budget later. Still in the planning stages...thanks for your input Zippy

 

I'm also running arp2000 rod bolts in my 04 5.3,and run it up to 6300 rpms a lot of times a week.I have 14k miles on them with no problems at all! Good luck,Mike