Cometic Headgasket prep?

[Girvin]

Ive searched through the forums and came up with nothing. I have a new head on the way , decked of course, and a set of ARP headbolts and a Cometic headgasket here. How should I prep the block for the install? High temp copper spray? or just clean up the old gasket material?

 

[Mirage2LTurbo]

You need to have a machine shop machine it to a mirror finish if it's a metal head gasket.

 

[TSIfreek]

You will run a risk of the head gasket not sealing if you dont get both the head and block decked perfectly flat. If you are not going to get the block decked I would run the stock OEM gasket from the dealer they seal very well and will hold 20+ psi no problem with studs.
As far as cleaning the old gasket off I used that spray gasket remover and a few razor blades and it got everthing off just dont let anything drop down in your oil galerys in your block also a shop vac comes in handy if anything does. A very clean deck surface is the key in the sealing of the head gasket. No copper spray on the OEM but recomended on the steel HGs

 

[turbowop]

Last year I burned a valve at the track, so over the winter I had the head rebuilt and ordered a Mitsu MLS headgasket and ARP's. I had the machine shop shave .003 off the head to make sure the surface was flat, cleaned the block deck surface as best as possible, sprayed the headgasket with a couple coats of copper spray, and bolted it all back together with the ARP's. I've been beating the crap out of my car all year at the track and on multiple local DSM runs where the car will get over 750 hard miles in one weekend. I usually run 27psi at the track and 22 on pump. The car is still running awesome. So long as you haven't overheated the engine to the point of warping the block and you prep the it's deck surface by cleaning it well you shouldn't have any problems with a metal headgasket.

 

[Girvin]

Sounds good to me.......I have 15,000kms on this motor and the block was decked during the rebuild. Cant wait to hit up the big boost