Cam tower washers?

[gundee]

Neither of my cyl. heads have washers under the cam tower bolts as shown below.

Noticed while assembling mine. Do any of your cyl. heads have these washers?

[rossiz]

absolutely. aluminum is soft and will gall if you crank a fastener head down into it, which can give false torque readings as well as not properly distribute the load to an effective area of material. does this mean your engine will explode? not necessarily... but i'd use washers for sure - no point risking something so simple.

[siteunseen]

Mine have #21 and they're flat washers I believe. 

[siteunseen]

4 hours ago, Lumens said:

Neither of my cyl. heads have washers under the cam tower bolts as shown below.

Noticed while assembling mine. Do any of your cyl. heads have these washers?

You are right, mine doesn't have a separate washer either. Sorry about that. The bolts have flats under the head on these I can put my hands on. I'll check my other heads tomorrow. 

[madkaw]

I've never seen washers there either. 

[gundee]

What I thought too. The bolts do have a flat on the bolt head as if it had a washer.

I am going to install the new cam and torque down as is.

[zKars]

No washers ever seen, even on a couple of early E31 heads.

Part 21 is also marked as the head bolt washers. Head bolts are 10mm, cam tower bolts are 8, so no way they would work. Must be a drawing error.

[rossiz]

should have read the OP more carefully - i thought he was asking if he should use washers that were called out. it's been a while since i removed/replaced my cam towers and while i remember what the bearing surface on the towers look like (i spent some time cleaning 'em) i forgot what the bolts looked like. at any rate, the bolt configuration is similar to a washer in that you wind up with a smooth bearing surface w/out the points of the hex cutting into the aluminum...