by atmosports » Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:22 pm
It depends on the style of the bolt. Some manufacturers use a Torque to yield bolt which is only able to be used once, the bolt is torque past it's elastic limit & stretched & will never return to it's original length to be re-use. If it's not a torque to yeild bolt/stud & it's within manufacturers guidelines with regards to length & doesn't show any damage especially to the threads & shank/head then it's probably ok to re-use it, I've always got them crack-tested if I have to re-use them, but then I'd normally bin them & get a set of ARP ones.
Advantage of an ARP one over standard, is that I never had an ARP one fail on me,especially when re-used. Also ARP bolts are manufactured to tighter tolerances with regards to material specification/sizing/quality than most mass-porduced manufacturer bolts. The threads are also rolled rather than cut, in doing this the grain structure of the material follows the profile of the thread in much the same way as the grain structure of a forging. Not to mention an ARP bolt is usually made of higher grade material to start with.