SCE copper head gasket

[eXploitedGST]

alright.... i ordered a SCE copper headgasket off Summitracing a few days ago and got it today... i was lookin at it... and didnt see that little groove on it where ur supposed to cut a O-Ring... does this gasket have to have the block and head O-Ringed still???

heres a pic of the gasket up close i took...

 

[ILOSE]

The gasket is not cut for an O-ring. You have the head or the block cut for an O-ring and when sandwiched between the head and block the O-ring embeddes itself into the copper. Do not use that gasket unless you use an o-ring!

 

[Razor_DSM]

i have that same gasket, we tried to get away without the o-ring and blowby all day as soon as it hits boost, blows the coolant right out of the overflow tank. my friend thought we could set away without it, but he is gonna fix it now, im throwin a stocker back on it. with the arp studs @ 85 with molly lube, what psi levels should it handle?

 

[rdrkt]

Right now the best head gasket available is the Cometic. They are cheaper then the Mitsu metal gaskets but they are MUCH nicer overall. I have one on my car and I was really impressed with what I saw. From what I have seen you really don’t need to oring a block to get it to seal even well over 500hp.

 

[DSMJim]

We have blown Cometic gaskets on SOHC civics with 5psi of boost. Sometimes they are ok, other times they blow very easily. With the hit and miss of Cometic gaskets we stoped using them on cars.

I advise against Cometic and we have installed likely over 20 of them on different cars and have had about 4-5 of them go only after a few months of use. We found them typically worse then stock gaskets.

However, I have never used one on a 4G63 so I can't say from personal experience on that motor however with the track record on Honda's I wouldn't use one on my own car. The stock head gaskets even on Hondas hold up better.

Just my .02 cents...