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Help me pick a head gasket

I'm going to be doing a head gasket soon and I would like to see what you guys think is the best route.
the car currently has a MLS gasket unknown brand. My car overheated one time while idling /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif and I started blowing greyish smoke under boost and there is a little oil in my coolant now. I have a buschur stage 3 head off of another parts car that I was planning on having cleaned and freshened up, I was going to have the valve seals replaced and the bottom shaved. I'm currently on a PTE 6057 pushing 20psi on pump, my plans if I keep the car are to add bigger injectors and retune on E85 around 30+psi
Should I go with another MLS or just run an OEM composite? I think I have ARP studs on the car now if not I know my parts car has them and I could just swap them.
I have read mixed comments on which would be ideal and I have also read that ARP's may not be enough for 30+ psi. I really don't want to spend another $250 for the L19 studs if it is not necessary and I don't want to have to redo it later if it can't handle the higher boost.
thanks,
Ed
 

DynastyLCD

Well-known member
Joined
May 12, 2006
Messages
761
Location
Harwinton, CT
for the sake of conversation, im going through a similar dillema.

i spoke to one of the local machinists thats very familiar with 4G63's. he was suggesting to put copper o-rings in the head, and use a stock headgasket. he says this will hold better than L19s and the fel-pro permatorque. however, then comes in the factor of cost effectiveness. at what point do the L19's/permatorque combo fail, and the o-ring/stock HG work better? the head stud and gasket combo is $400 on expsi. i forgot what i was quoted for o-rings, but it was somewhat expensive, IIRC. so the question is raised... is it cost effective enough to use the o-ring method? upsides/downsides?

personal expierience:

ive had hit and miss luck with mitsu 4-layers. had a few (including the one in my current engine) that held great with regular ARP's. had a few that leaked. i switched to fel-pros, as ive heard alot of people having great luck with them. a mitsu 4-layer will also only be good if your engine is stock or .020 over. if i were to do it all over again, i think i would have saved my money, used my new machinist (close to 3ra finish) and got the L19's/permatorque combo from the start.
 

The other thing is I will only be machining the head, do you think the block will be flat enough. I also don't know what my bore size is or whatever it is called, is there a way to tell once the head is off?
What about using L19's with a stock composite gasket? or is it the gasket at that point that can't handle the pressure?
 

Okayplayer

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 14, 2010
Messages
255
Location
Denver, CO
I think it would be a good idea to have your block checked as well. The overheating issue can cause the block to warp.
 

rdomeck

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 1, 2011
Messages
620
Location
Indianapolis, In.
It's easy to carried away in something like this....I would have you head checked out at a machine shop and see what it needs. There are a lot of people running a Cometic gasket and have good luck with them. I installed one on my car, but I only have about 200 miles on the engine running 20 PSi. Your block could be warped, but it would take a lot. You can check this pretty easy yourself with a good straight edge and a set of feeler gauges. My block was .0005 from being flat, not enough to have it decked in my opinion. My head was .001, still not enough to have it decked. You have to keep in mind that you can only deck a block and head so many times before it is not usable anymore!
 

Launch

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 17, 2006
Messages
350
Location
Texas
Its not the strightness that dictates the surface of gasket to be used! HOW FINE THE MACHINE TOOL PASSED OVER YOUR HEAD/BLOCK WILL TELL YOU WHAT HG YOU CAN RUN.
 

MuffinMan7580

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 6, 2011
Messages
142
Location
Fort Bragg, NC
Quoting DynastyLCD:
for the sake of conversation, im going through a similar dillema.

i spoke to one of the local machinists thats very familiar with 4G63's. he was suggesting to put copper o-rings in the head, and use a stock headgasket. he says this will hold better than L19s and the fel-pro permatorque. however, then comes in the factor of cost effectiveness. at what point do the L19's/permatorque combo fail, and the o-ring/stock HG work better? the head stud and gasket combo is $400 on expsi. i forgot what i was quoted for o-rings, but it was somewhat expensive, IIRC. so the question is raised... is it cost effective enough to use the o-ring method? upsides/downsides?




A good friend of mine used this combo, and he blew it on 30 psi with a 35r, making about 510 HP (with standard ARP's). He switched over the the HKS gasket (with a different head that wasn't machined for the o-rings), and hasn't had a problem since (He's using a-1 studs now). One of the high HP guys (700+) over on DSMTalk used a composite HG with stock bolts until around 600, and then switched to MLS and L19's. Stock head bolts/standard ARP's should be fine with an MLS for you, unless you plan on making BIG power.
 
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I put a $60 NPR eBay head gasket just to try and it works fine at 8k miles... I've used shitty composite gaskets with some good and some bad luck.. I dunno I've had cosmetics fail too tho at like 16lbs.
 
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