Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[humbucker]

i have read with interest many threads on different forums where car owners are replacing their regular head gaskets with steel head gaskets, sometimes because they need replacing, and sometimes as an 'improvement'.

i wondered what the benefits of doing so were, and if it were advisable on a standard 3.0 omega elite. or is this a performance modification?

[Kevin Wood]

V6 Head gaskets very rarely fail, so I can see no benefit in using anything other than genuine or a good quality pattern part.

Kevin

[humbucker]

V6 Head gaskets very rarely fail, so I can see no benefit in using anything other than genuine or a good quality pattern part.

Kevin

thanks for the advice. do you know why some fit steel gaskets? is this a durability concern or is it performance enhancing in some way? able to take higher pressures etc?

  :-?

[Marks DTM Calib]

There are pros and cons....steel headgaskets actualy have probably more issues than composite ones and guarantee nowt.

Composite ones suffer due to poor coolant maintenance and in the case of a design floor in an engine (i.e. K series), are prone to failure if there is much movement.

The steel ones can leak for what appears to be no good reason with often water ending up in the oil (they suffer less with water to combustion chamber issues). The composites tend to rot (due to poor maintenance) which means the fire rings are not fully supported and hence you get coolant to combustion chamber issues or very occasionaly water leaks.

Two examples.

K series Rover - has some nasty design issues which means that the composite ones get a hammering, in theory the steel ones would help...a bit!

Rover V8 - Standard steel ones suffer all sorts of failures.....the later engines had a composite one fitted which sorted most faults out!

So, horses for courses.....fitting a steel gasket could in theory also increase your compresson ratio....(they are thinner) but, I favour the composite ones and good servicing!

[Marks DTM Calib]

Should have added.....2.6 and 3.2 have steel head gaskets!

[hotel21]

A wee bit off topic but strangely linked....

The large marine diesels that i served my time on were face to face with no head gasket whatsoever...  Seal achieved by use of dollys and grinding paste to ensure faces are flush within tolerances, then bolted up as per....

And they were in excess of 800mm bore with a 2+ metre stroke!!

[Marks DTM Calib]

A wee bit off topic but strangely linked....

The large marine diesels that i served my time on were face to face with no head gasket whatsoever...  Seal achieved by use of dollys and grinding paste to ensure faces are flush within tolerances, then bolted up as per....

And they were in excess of 800mm bore with a 2+ metre stroke!!

The ultimate is in theory wills rings......machined grooves in the heads and blocks with small nitrogen filled rings around the combustion chambers....pus seals/sealent around the other bits!

As used on true race engines!

[Marks DTM Calib]

One wills ring:

[Entwood]

A wee bit off topic but strangely linked....

The large marine diesels that i served my time on were face to face with no head gasket whatsoever...  Seal achieved by use of dollys and grinding paste to ensure faces are flush within tolerances, then bolted up as per....

And they were in excess of 800mm bore with a 2+ metre stroke!!

The ultimate is in theory wills rings......machined grooves in the heads and blocks with small nitrogen filled rings around the combustion chambers....pus seals/sealent around the other bits!

As used on true race engines!

and on a few "not-quite-race -engines" .....  

http://www.imps4ever.info/tech/engine.html

the modified 875cc engines had these way way back ..

[Marks DTM Calib]

Lol, they were race engines as knocked out by Grethams (Owned and run by Andy Chessman) of Coventry where Matchless once worked as a lad!

[humbucker]

cheers for the info chaps, informative as ever. corner of my gasket looks like its perished at the back corner of passenger side head, going to replace both sides next week so figured i'd see what the benefits of metal gasket were.