My block is oringed with stainless steel wire and also has the receiver groove in te cyl head. I am up in the air still about headgaskets.

The 2 I am considering is a solid copper SCE gasket or a stock mitsubishi composite. Unless I'm missing something.

The sce copper seems to make the most sense to me. I don't have a mirror finish so I was blowing out the mls gaskets before the oring. Seems like it would seal best imo. But I've read a few people having issues with coolant and oil passages.


The Evo guys swear by using the stock composite gasket . Which to me seems crazy but very proven on the evos.

Any real world recent experience out there??

Thanks

A composite will work fine. Just make sure the o rings line up with somewhere around the middle of the fire ring of the gasket.

A copper gasket seals combustion gasses great with a proper o ring setup. The issue is they do not seal the coolant passages very well, and often need re-torqued, or replaced.

The composite gasket will be ok at my power level? The cometic failed at 40psi and about 700whp theoigh an auto awd

Paul uses fel pro composites on his oring setup and swears by them if my memory serves me correctly. I don't believe he has the same type of oring setup though.

I don't know about the O-Ring part, but I run a felpro composite with surfaces good enough for a MLS. My car has trapped 137 and weighed 3300 at the time. It was on a HY35, so the tune was agressive.

It lasted a summer then started pushing coolant. $40 later and its good as new. I think 90% of the coolant pushing is from the head itself getting soft. Repeated high power gets it warm and anneals it eventually. Or maybe it overages it and then it gets soft, either way a nice virgin head holds gaskets better than a beat up one.

With the receiver groove in the head, your only option is the SCE copper.

bastarddsm said:

I don't know about the O-Ring part, but I run a felpro composite with surfaces good enough for a MLS. My car has trapped 137 and weighed 3300 at the time. It was on a HY35, so the tune was agressive.

It lasted a summer then started pushing coolant. $40 later and its good as new. I think 90% of the coolant pushing is from the head itself getting soft. Repeated high power gets it warm and anneals it eventually. Or maybe it overages it and then it gets soft, either way a nice virgin head holds gaskets better than a beat up one.

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I've had better sealing with the new Oem head I bought last year than any head I've ever used.

Good info.

So the copper is the only option with this setup? I was wondering how an oem gaskets fire ring would form into the groove

You can check if it will work with a $35 gasket, and some dye.

The only one that will "pinch" with the oring on one side and the receiver groove on the other is the copper NON ICS gasket from SCE. Whoever did the machine work should have told you this.

It will technically seal with a composite gasket but it defeats the purpose of the o-rings. When the head is torqued in place, the composite gasket simply absorbs the o-ring, for lack of a better word. The idea behind the copper is that the steel wire o-ring forces the malleable copper up into the receiver groove in the head. This provides protection in the event that the head lifts.

Your setup, i'd probably go with copper as stated above.

On my non-o-ringed motor, I am a $40 composite guy all the way. Not making the power you are, but my car was trapping 130+ at 30psi and 3395lbs and I have yet to have a properly torqued composite gasket fail on me.

Yeah I figured the sce gasket was going to be the only option. I just keep reading the Evo Guys that swear by the composite stock gaskets on their Oring setups. Maybe they don't have the same setup.

The evolutions do not come with a composite gasket from the factory. It has to be some weird aftermarket setup.

I'm unaware of a composite gasket for the Evo block. I know those guys use the factory MLS gasket with o-rings and reportedly have good success but I wouldn't try it.

JacksonAuto said:

It will technically seal with a composite gasket but it defeats the purpose of the o-rings. When the head is torqued in place, the composite gasket simply absorbs the o-ring, for lack of a better word. The idea behind the copper is that the steel wire o-ring forces the malleable copper up into the receiver groove in the head. This provides protection in the event that the head lifts.

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very good point. I would use copper on this setup as well.

but for future builds use an oring head with .011 protrusion and a felpro gasket.
there isnt a better working setup for these cars.

you only have to understand one simple fact. the term head lifting, is really head flexing. gaskets always blow farthest from studs. never near a stud. oring head works far better because head is flexing and block is staying flat. oring block does very little if anything. oring heads are awesome. and i have tried every practical combination of available gasket tricks.

That's right. It's tough to imagine the head flexing but it happens. The best solution would be to add more head studs, but there's nowhere to put them.

I can't add to the Dsm part of this but in the diesel world o ring and fire ring is very common and we all just run oem gasket with o rings and have no issues. We also only cut the head for the o rings leave the block flat.

Y'all know if it matters what material to use with a composite gasket for the oring? I usually run copper with MLS but swapping to felpro composite. Can I keep the copper for the oring or does it need to be swapped to steel? Only the block is o'ringed. Purchased it like this.