I am putting a new headgasket in my rig and want to know witch gasket i shoudl go with. I want to go with a marine gasket but I am not sure if I should get the .10 or the .20? Leaning toward the .10 becasue i do not want to lower the compression that much. Also, What about Cometics new multi-layer steel gasket? They say it is supposed to be good for 80 psi with studs? I want a reliable 40-50 psi system.

 

Stay away from Cometic until they gat things straightened out, people who are using them they arent holding up.
If you dont want to lower compression stay with a .010.
Also, there is no more regular head gasket. Cummins stopped making the regular ones and only use the Marine ones now.

 

Really? I ordered the one that is bad now the week of thanksgiving and it was supposedly a regular gasket?

 

Schaef I just did my HG. I went with Fel Pro. I compared Fel Pro against the Marine gasket that I had that blew. Both my machine shop and I feel the gaskets are identical. And I have been using Fel Pro on all of my hot rods for the last 20 years with ZERO issues. Was your head surfaced for the last HG replacement? You can get away with a .10 over if you only take .006-.007 off the head. But any more and you will have to run a .20 over. And like Dieselman mentioned about lowering compression.

Even if you lowered .5 on the compression you will never feel it. Your static compression may change but your dynamic compression will not be affected by much....

My opinion on why a lot of HG's blow is bad prep work before and during the HG install. And improper re torques or even initial torques.

O ring and forget about it....

What type of EGT's do you run on a consistent basis? You might have to much drive pressure in combination with high EGT's. Those two combined issues with eat up new HG very quick....

 

Yes, I decked the head and checked the block. The origanal gasket at least blew in between the cylinder ring and the cooling jacket. This gasket blew between the cooling jacket and oil jacket on the opposite side of the block and filled the cooling sytem with oil.

How much are o-rings?

 

Depends on the place. I have heard anywher from $200-$400.
I paid $300 for mine.