"O" ringed head gasket options?

[Dan Adams]

Hey all, any suggestions for head gaskets? My blocks are 'o' ringed and heads have receiver grooves, with copper gaskets. Heads will be decked to flatten. But before we cut new receiver grooves in the heads are there any options to copper gaskets without decking the block to remove the 'o' ring groove?

[ProMod]

We have had good luck running Cometic head gaskets for many years with 15 lbs of boost know problems.


For me I would never o ring a marine application because if we do have a hot spot I would rather blow my gasket than my internals.

[Chris]

Most likely the groove is cut behind where the bead on the head gasket hits. Should be no problem. You may have to look at several brands of gaskets though.

[Dan Adams]

Thanks ProMod and Chris. I had also though about not putting the receiver groove back in the heads after decking. Then using a smaller diameter wire, only the depth of the groove in the block, and using a cometic or similiar style. Thanks again, Dan

[runninhotracing]

Thanks ProMod and Chris. I had also though about not putting the receiver groove back in the heads after decking. Then using a smaller diameter wire, only the depth of the groove in the block, and using a cometic or similiar style. Thanks again, Dan

I had also though about not putting the receiver groove back in the heads after decking. now your thinkin BIG Daddy









ROCK ON !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ITS A SKATER NATION !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[26 Spyder]

I have built a few engines with a wire & groove in the block only (under 10 PSI). A copper gasket and the correct sealer and retorquing procedure you shouldn't have any leaks.

If you don't want to run copper I would use Cometic as Promod suggested. Use a wire with the OD the same as your groove depth like you said.

[Dan Adams]

Yaa, Runninhot an Spyder! I like it...I'm going with it, no groove in the head and smaller wire. Gotta do some gasket research.

[Coolerman]

Performance gasket concepets, ask for Bob. He will answer all of your questions. Be careful running cometics on blower motors with high boost. Go the safe way, and do it right with copper o-rings. It'll be more work, but, they work.

[Mrhorsepower1]

I would run the o-ring in the block only!! DO NOT receiver groove the heads again. Mill the grooves out of the heads. Performance Gasket offers a very nice copper gasket with graphite composition water jacket inserts. I can get you the gaskets if needed. Also you want the o-ring protrusion to be about .012. Hope this helps. It's proven and I have run it on many supercharged engine packages with no issues. Thanks!

Dean Gellner

[Geronimo36]

Performance gasket concepets, ask for Bob. He will answer all of your questions. Be careful running cometics on blower motors with high boost. Go the safe way, and do it right with copper o-rings. It'll be more work, but, they work.

Two years ago we had one of the engines apart and milled the block to get rid of the o-rings so I could use cometics. we didn't mill the groove completely out, we just milled the ring flat to the surface of the deck.

On the other engine I still have the O-rings in the block so I have a set of Bob's copper/graphite gaskets. The body of the gasket is copper and there are graphite inserts around all the water passages and rubber o-rings around the small holes. it works pretty well!!

[Dan Adams]

chit, multiple opinions. Dean, Geronimo, sounds like the best of both worlds. I will have my head guy Jim V. give you a call for the top end gaskets...thanks guys, Dan

[Geronimo36]

If it were me and I had everything apart and had to do machine work anyway, I'd machine the rings flat to the deck and use cometics. On my decks you couldn't even tell there were o'rings after they were milled flat. The cometics seal really well and don't leak any water. I'm debating pulling my one engine with the o'rings in the next couple months and doing a quick refresh (rings/bearings/hone) and mill the o'rings out so I can have them both be the same.

If you don't have anything else to do, then I'd use Bob's (performance gasket) copper/graphite gaskets. I also didn't have any receiver grooves in the heads.

I've also used Bob's SS/graphite gaskets once. The gasket is graphite and the fire ring is stainless and you can get away with installing them with o'rings but not on really big hp engines. The graphite is soft enough that the ss fire rings embeds in the o'ring. I don't higly recommend this method but it can/has worked in a pinch.

[PatriYacht]

How many lbs. boost are you running? Most marine set-ups don't run enough to require o-rings. Up to about 12 lbs, Cometics would do the job by themselves.