Head Gasket

[Enes]

A friend of mine needs to know which headgasket he should use..

normal factory or metalhead one..

he's only runing s20g and 23psi front mount, and few minor goodies, nothing big, made about 270whp ... awd.


i'd say go with factory and coper spray it.

-E

[EclipseGST]

If he is redecking the head then I'd go with a Metalhead (I believe your talking about the multilayered HG?) and some ARP headstuds. If not then run the factory one but he should still use ARP headstuds.

[Pimpin Dsmstyle]

Metal head gasket means if something goes wrong, your bottom end is fucked. If you use a regular stock one, chances are if something goes wrong, the bottom end will be fine.

[JET]

I would also use a stocker for the low boost settings. Hell, I am running a stock 2.4 one on my engine!

[Matt D.]

Metal head gasket means if something goes wrong, your bottom end is fucked. If you use a regular stock one, chances are if something goes wrong, the bottom end will be fine.
Please explain.

[Halon]

I too agree with the stock composite gasket coupled with ARP studs.

[Enes]

i suggested to him stocker with copper spray.

[Jakey]

Please explain.


I have read it time and time again exactly what Josh is saying. By running a metal headgasket, the headgasket can no longer be considered an initial failure point due to the strength of material increase. If not careful, one can f*ck up an engine quite easily simply because a problem which would have been evident when running a OEM headgasket (obviously, the head gasket blows), is not exposed as quickly or not at all when running a metal headgasket.

[JET]

Please explain.
They are definately right. That is the whole reason my engine got F'd up last year. If I would have had a stock head gasket on there, it would have blown long before I melted the head and probably pistons. I had a Cometic HP on there though. Needless to say, this year I am running a stocker.

[niterydr]

We usually recommend the stockers copper sprayed with arp's properly torqued down on most applications.
Heck, johns talon last year ran the stocker, as much as 39psi on the street!