Head Gasket Advice

[evilspot]

Well just found out from my mech what I feared, I have a leaking (blown) head gasket (not a lot of smoke coming out back, and was just trying to find the leak, which turned out to be the lower intake, wanted to know if it was the intake of the plastic 90 in-front) so now I need to do a gasket job.:cry: Never done one of these, but there is a first for everything. I am sure this will only be one of many questions, but can anybody suggest a good gasket brand, or maybe more importantly which brands to avoid. The poor bird has 150K on it and its been good, plus body and interior are still good, just don't want to get rid of her. Don't think changing gaskets scare me that much, but is it worth while to figure out how to rebuild the Heads also. yes I plan to have the heads checked and milled, and I would like to make sure that I do all the smart things. so if there are any suggestion I am listening.

Thanks

[T-Mill]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

I'd get Cometic metal gaskets and use copper spray...

[evilspot]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

will look into it, read a couple about the copper spray, thanks

[taylor.o1]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

I bought the absolute cheapest gasget set i could find on ebay and used that. After 6 months of hard driving I cheaked compresion and was within 5 psi on all cilinders. I did buy a better gasget for the headers though, i didint want to use a paper one. I think the main thing is making sure everything is perfectly clean! and be carfull when your putting the heads back on not to scratch your gasget.

[Rob Bell]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

I used Fel-Pro on my last car and they worked well.

[cam98aro]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

i would go with felpro.

you dont need copper/expensive head gaskets IMO unless you are running serious compression.

my other camaro was running 12.5:1 comp with a regular felpro head gasket and it was completely fine.

[Pewter02Camaro]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

The Felpro permatourqe's are an excellent stock replacment.

[evilspot]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

Thanks for the thoughts, think I am going to go with the Felpro option. Hoping to start working on the car this weekend, I will try to post pics of the job as I go, probably going to take some time to do as I have limited time to work on things.

[evilspot]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

So, I got the upper and lower intakes off, and will start to remove the valve covers and heads either tomorrow or Friday (only been able to work for about 1 to 1.5 hours in the evening). will try to post some pics, but it is not that pretty in there.

[Mogobs30th]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

Once you tear down the engine, replace the head bolts with studs. I have always recommended this.

[Rob Bell]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

If you have time and money, get the heads P&P'd while you've got everything apart. This is an excellent opportunity to get it done!

[evilspot]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

well just want to give an update. Finally got the heads off yesterday, it is a mess in there so really glad I did this now. Planned on talking to the machine shop what it would cost to P&P once I know the heads are still good. wondering if anybody has any tricks that could help in getting things back together. going to spend sometime cleaning things before I put it all back together. Just as a future thought, after I get it back together I plan to run it for about 300 then seafoam it, any other thoughts?

[evilspot]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

Just dropped the Heads off at the machine shop last night, the good news is that the initial test does not seem to indicate that they are cracked. Going to go head and get a valve job done while they are there. Should get them back by the end of the week and I can start to re-assemble the car

[Den69RS96]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

To be safe run somthing like felpro's permatorque head gaskets. They are more forgiving in regards to deck surface. Some head gaskets like cometics mls or felpro's steel shim gaskets require a deck surface to be extremely flat and to have been machined to RA 50 or smoother. Lay a straight edge across the block and stick a feeler gauge in there. If you can fit anything over .003 of an inch, you might need to deck your block.

[evilspot]

Re: Head Gasket Advice

So two new thought, first what is the best way to clean the block to insure a good seal, everything is off, but worried about getting garbage in the engine. Second, just found out that one of the heads has two cracks, :cry: found some local heads off a '99 3800. The machine shop is going to clean, verify and check everything. just want to get the poor girl back together.