Felt or Metal HG?

[TurboFever]

Should I buy a stock or metal HG for my car? I am probably goin to upgrade the turbo to a 14b and push the psi to whatever is safe without other mods.

 

[Xtraction]

From looking at your vehicle profile I'd say the stock head gasket would be fine. You won't be pushing enough boost to damage it. I've got a fully built bottom end and will be pushing 25 to 30 lbs of boost on race fuel next season. I had a Mitsu metal head gasket installed with ARP studs to keep the head down tight. Unless you plan on modifying your car in the near future to the point of pushing mad boost I wouldn't waste the money.

 

[knighteclipse1]

From what I gather, your just lightly modding your vehicle, so I concur with the above statement. You shouldn't need a metal headgasket. Save the money for other things.

 

[milz]

Metal head gasket. Later down the road when you do more modifications to your car it would be a nice thing to have. Plus the metal head gasket can take way more abuse than felt can. If you don’t have the money to spend and are planning to keep it stock set up, than go ahead and stay with the stock head gasket.

 

[larsrya8]

Do you need to have the block decked to use a metal headgasket?

 

[project_tsi]

Yes you should. I learned this the hard way. (currently replacing leaking metal head gasket)

 

[project_tsi]

How about these.
http://www.scegaskets.com/products/ics.html

Sounds good. I believe FFWD uses them on all their injuns now.

Yes those are great gaskets, exept a bit pricey. In his case, a stock HG and a set of arp head studs will hold 20 psi all day long w/ out incident. However, he is not ready for 20psi. He says he wants to upgrade to a 14b turbo and turn the boost up w/out any other mods. Although not the best plan in the world, you can safely run 15 psi on the stock fuel system. Some will argue w/ me that 17 psi is safe, however I like to say 15 psi if you are not running any type of logging device that shows IDC's and fuel trims. If you have at logger, and according to what it reads, 17 psi may be fine.

 

[milz]

Yes those are great gaskets, exept a bit pricey. In his case, a stock HG and a set of arp head studs will hold 20 psi all day long w/ out incident. However, he is not ready for 20psi. He says he wants to upgrade to a 14b turbo and turn the boost up w/out any other mods. Although not the best plan in the world, you can safely run 15 psi on the stock fuel system. Some will argue w/ me that 17 psi is safe, however I like to say 15 psi if you are not running any type of logging device that shows IDC's and fuel trims. If you have at logger, and according to what it reads, 17 psi may be fine.

my stock head gasket blew at 20psi and i had arp head studs!!!

 

[dsm-onster]

my stock head gasket blew at 20psi and i had arp head studs!!!

I'm running 22 psi on my daily driver with stock head gasket and ARPs. Have been doing it with Small16G snd now with my 18G.

I do know what i did right. I did retorque after 5 heat cycles and I torqued to 110 lbs.

 

[GVR4592]

I run 24-25 psi daily on a PTE 60 trim with stock head bolts and gasket. The neccesity of aftermarket head gaskets and arp studs is greatly exaggerated. It is good insurance and if installed correctly will outperform the stock components but it is hardly neccesary for 90% of cars. If you go with a metal gasket the head and block surfaces need to be a mirror finish. Most machine shops don't know this and even if they do know it, they do not have the equipment to do it properly. So choose your machine shop carefully.

 

[project_tsi]

my stock head gasket blew at 20psi and i had arp head studs!!!

Something was wrong then. I ran 22 psi daily on my stock gasket w/ ARP's on a small 16G for quite a while. I too, retourqed the studs after a period of time.

 

[Xtraction]

Do you need to have the block decked to use a metal headgasket?

The only advice that I can really give you is this...do it right the first time or don't do it at all! I'm on my third engine and finally decided to do it right. This mother f***er had better not blow up. To answer your question...if you're planning on running high boost and making lots of power just build the engine. I O-ringed the block as well. Good luck!

 

[milz]

fel pro head gasket!!! I changed over to metal head gasket

 

[BlackHalo]

i blew my fel-pro at 20 psi with my 50 trim in a 1,000 miles... had the head decked and put in a cometic and has held for 3,000 so far :0

 

[dsm-onster]

I run 24-25 psi daily on a PTE 60 trim with stock head bolts and gasket. The neccesity of aftermarket head gaskets and arp studs is greatly exaggerated. It is good insurance and if installed correctly will outperform the stock components but it is hardly neccesary for 90% of cars.

I have to agree. I was running 20+ psi with my small 16g before installing studs. I popped my gasket because i ran lean (fpr vacuum hose blew off during a hard pull). I would have gone back to stock head bolts but Summit was selling the ARPs for cheaper .

Nevertheless to the original poster, when tuning, make small increases or decreases and you'll never need an upgrade from stock on most of the setups we all run. Remeber: a headgasket can be like a failsafe fuse. If your ecu doesn't yank enough timing early enough a poped hg is better than a burned ring or piston or worse .