wouldnt that piss you off, 2 weeks away from the nats and you blow your head gasket. have any of you guys used metal head gaskets before, their supposed to be unbreakable- they better be for $349. dont know what other damaged it has caused yet but will find out after the new year

I use a metal gasket from Tomei. They come in various thicknesses. I am replacing my cam so I will have to decide on the type of gasket to use. For racing, the copper head gasket would be your best bet. It can be used repeatedly. Of course with all gasket replacements make sure the block and head surfaces are true, and if you use head bolts, replace them.

Good Luck

$349 sounds a bit excessive to me, Try ringing John Tripp from ACL specialised gaskets (in Brisbane) on 07 3365 0799.
They have branches in every capital city.
He makes up my unique composite head gaskets for $90 and the 3mm steel spacer/gasket i require for about $40.
They will make any gasket you want, steel, composite, copper in the range of 1mm--3mm.

Regardless of what it says on the package, i always re-torqued my head at about 10,000 k from the fitment of a new gasket, then about once a year or so after that. I would remove each bolt in turn & lube both the thread & the washer, then reinstall. I never suffered a head gasket failure ever.

The head bolt tension does tend to relax a little during normal use as the head expands when hot, crushing the gasket a little, then it shrinks a little when cold. The gasket seems to lose some of its resiliance & the tension reduces.

Retensioning when you do your anual major service seems to keep things in check. Well, it worked for me.

Thanks for the tip on gasket manufacture. I will ring ACL to see what they can do locally.

Double faced steel head gaskets locally are about $230. Nismo woven stainless gaskets are about $200.

Where do you use the 3mm steel spacer/gasket?

Feral, I use the steel shim as a decompression plate to bring the comp. ratio down, the head I'm using has had alot machined off the face.
I use Hylomar to glue it down to the block and then use the head gasket as per normal.

OK, thanks for the tip on the gasket maker.
Must be a lot of the head to need that large a spacer. How are the water galleries holding up? Not collapsing into the coolant cavity especially near number 4 manifold side rear coolant opening??????
This is where I have seen most good heads fail after a number of skims.

The water galleries look ok, the pistons i'm using are nearly flat tops after machning 2mm off the tops of them, this hasn't helped with the comp. ratio. Without steel shim the ratio would have been 18:1, a little to high for pump fuel lol

What is this? Lets blow a head gasket week?
I was driving along yesterday, and all of a sudden my ute started sounding like a VW beetle. At first I thought my muffler fell off or something, but i'd dropped cyls 3 and 4.

The ute ran all right considering i was only running on 2 cylinders.

It would make a good A15D though