Austarion

i took these pics last wed at the workshop. We have been stuffed around with the head gasket for the last month, it was made from the wrong copper and the workshop had probs annealing it and a new one is being made. So i'm still waiting for the engine to be put together.
the cylinder head with cc'd stainless valves and o ring insert grooves.



the timing gear after the removal of the LH balance shaft (RH turned down but still remains inside to support oil pump idler gear)



the block with arp head studs, o-rings and je pistons (twin cam)

Thats all looking very nice....but the cylinder head chambers need work matey. I would tell you what we do but....
If you have a good look at around the valve heads it's rather obvious. The 'W' ring is a nice idea and you will find its great with the CORRECT head gasket. Congrats on some decent money spent in the right areas.

thanks for the reply flav, if your refering to the removing the recess around the valve heads then i have already discussed this with the work shop. the compression is already going to be low and removing any more material from the chamber will drop it even further. i would like to be able to drive the car off boost. we chose to leave them there for compression and to avoid adding any extra stress raisers (points were cracks start from) inside the cylinder, the edges have been rounded off slightly and then polished to remove the scratches but that is all. My orignal cyl head had it done and ended up with 2 lovely big cracks through 2nd and 3rd pots due to the removal of the material around the valves.

It looks good sicjb, but i do have a query regarding the o-rings, is it necessary to use a copper head gasket or can you use a different material gasket in combination with the o-rings.

i believe you can use other metalic head gaskets but i could only get one made from copper which is still alot better than a standard one.

Yeah, thats what i mean...i usually skim it abit if we are down on comp, but it depends on what you want. Whats yr gasket thickness?

Nice work.. whos is building your engine?

Is is expensive?

I'm looking to get the same stuff done to my engine...

Hey pete. i got a bloke that will do a rebuild for you on the cheap, you supply parts he'll do the rest.

Hes not far from liverpool either

igottasicjb wrote:i believe you can use other metalic head gaskets but i could only get one made from copper which is still alot better than a standard one.

When you say other metalic gaskets, would something like a cometic MLS head gasket work with the o-rings?

Cometic use 'pressed type' orings in their gaskets, so using O rings on the deck is really not needed.

flav wrote:Cometic use 'pressed type' orings in their gaskets, so using O rings on the deck is really not needed.

Flav,
How much are the cometics? trade price?

flav wrote:Cometic use 'pressed type' orings in their gaskets, so using O rings on the deck is really not needed.

I realise that o-rings of sorts in their gaskets, but can you use them in combination with o-rings in the block, the reason I am asking is when I pulled off the head i found this



and I prefer not to reuse the copper head gasket.

sorry about hijacking your thread sicjb.

No, cometic do not recommend it.
We had the same issue when we swapped, like u are, from copper to cometic. The answers we got was to file the O rings down even or to use copper O rings. I went with the 1mm copper O rings. But the steel ones can be a bitch to remove so take your time if you go this direction.

Flav,
How much are the cometics? trade price?[/quote]

pm...for latest.

Thanks for the reply flav, but why is using copper o-rings ok with the cometic gasket when the steel one isnt? Is there any other option like using a standard style gasket with the existing o-rings?