headgasket question- important

[highintenzity4]

Hey guys I ordered the evolll MLS Headgasket from ams for my 95 eclipse.. Its a little loose around the arp head studs... Is this alright? or did i recieve a wrong headgasket?

 

[RoasT BeeF]

As long as it fits tight around the aligning dowels and all other holes line up you should be fine.

 

[1fast97gsx]

That's normal. People are using this same headgasket on 6 bolts with arps which are 1mm larger than 7 bolt arps and they work on the 6 bolts as well. This leaves you an extra 1mm of clearance from the 6 bolt guys already, however this is perfectly normal and acceptable. Make sure all the holes line up and the dowels are intact as well. Good luck.

 

[highintenzity4]

We forgot to put back on the dowels when we recieved the block back from the machine shop... ahh.... we still lined up all the holes properly.... would go back to install the dowels but we already torqued the head studs and already installed the cams...

 

[1fast97gsx]

I think those dowels are NEEDED. It's kinda like the dowels that go between the engine and tranny to align everything. You can get it really close without them but there's a chance of it shifting and causing some problems down the road. If it were me I'd go back and put them in, but then again it'd be the same work as to just risk it without them and swap them in later when needed.

 

[DSMJim]

aargh.. you forgot the dowels? thats what centers the head (or valves) over the pistons properly. Your askin for problems. Now that you ahve torqued the head down you have crushed the head gasket and it can't be re-used either.

Thats a big of a mess you have there...

 

[Lunch_Box]

I thought you could reuse steel head gaskets?

 

[DSMJim]

I thought you could reuse steel head gaskets?

Why would you think that? They crush just like a normal gasket, they are only less prone to blow outs thats it tho. If you crush it, it's garbage if you loosen off the head. If you wanna try and re-use it by tightening down the head more go for it, but your going beyond the yield of the bolts and you acctually get less clamping force at 100ft/lbs vs 85 ft/lbs on arp studs. So basically what I'm saying is it's garbage.

 

[Lunch_Box]

Why would you think that? They crush just like a normal gasket, they are only less prone to blow outs thats it tho. If you crush it, it's garbage if you loosen off the head. If you wanna try and re-use it by tightening down the head more go for it, but your going beyond the yield of the bolts and you acctually get less clamping force at 100ft/lbs vs 85 ft/lbs on arp studs. So basically what I'm saying is it's garbage.

I was just going by things that I have read on here, so much false information some times it's hard what to believe.