Well guys like it says. White smoke billowing from the pipes and it smells like cotton candy, yum. Now my question to you is what head gasket should I go with. I was running Felpro's and I don't want to machine the block for a set of Cometic's cause its staying in the car. Do I attempt Felpro's again and maybe use some copper spray on them? I could of very well blown them cause the head's might have lifted up under boost. I'm already runng ARP studs, so there is not much more I can do about that. The heads were checked for cracks and that they were level by the machine shop so I don't suspect thats a problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Rob.

 

You could go with some heads that have a thicker deck like TFS or AFR, or you could switch to cast iron if you dont mind the extra 45 lbs.

 

I have had very, very bad luck using copper spray on Fel-pro head gaskets. We went through $500 in gaskets before a Grand National guy told us that the copper spray will make the head gasket blow easier.

A little bit of detonation will kill a head gasket. I just replaced on on a 01 Ram Air. It spun and overreved, just for a small amount of time and blew the head gasket.

 

The detonation could very well be the culprit behind the whole deal. Last week we found the Booster fuel pump not working and we had run the car hard. It started running very rough at 4000rpm due to lack of fuel, hooked the pump back up and it was good to go, so I thought. So what gaskets to run. Just stick with 1074's?. No copper spray huh. Man I used to use that stuff all the time. What advantage would aftermarket heads have on the whole deal? Besides the obvious HP gain. Thanks Rob.

 

Aftermarket heads are thicker at the mating surface. Having more material there makes them more rigid which keeps them from distorting as much.

 

Call SCE and see if they have their titan ICS or SS copper HG's availible for the LT1. 18lbs boost is a lot for fel-pros in a non-race/short change interval app.

Keep the detonation in check, that is a killer.

 

I would stick with the Felpros.. I run them in my car w/o a problem, of course, I do have AFR heads which have a thicker head deck. I bet you detonated and blew the gasket.. Better to blow the gasket, then a ringland...

 

Thanks for all the replies guys. I called Combination today, we are going to go with the Cometics. They're afraid another set of Felpros might not stand up to the task. The block and heads were resurfaced before the rebuild so I'm gonna run a Scotchbrite pad over the block surface, have the heads checked and hope like hell they seal good. Wish I could throw a couple grand into a set of their Trickflows, but thats just not an option. The new Moser 9" took care of that avenue. Wish me luck. Thanks, Rob.

 

Be very careful with the scotch-brite pads. I read that the abrasive particles in the scotch-brite pads can fall into the cylinder and extensively scratch the piston/cylinder wall. I used to use them in the past, but after reading that article I quit. You can go to a parts store and get a gasket removing kit, that is usually a spray, scraper, and some scotch like pad.

Good luck with it. I will be messing with my Firebird this summer @ 17psi. I have the fel-pros, so I hope they hold.

 

Use a wire-wheel to clean the deck surface. You need to have the heads surfaced to remove the brinelling from the fel-pro gasket. Make sure they keep the Ra under 30. Hopefully they use diamond pucks...

 

I talked to the machine shop today. They told me when they decked the block that he made the surface smooth enough for the Cometics to seal. Taking them the heads tomorrow so they can pressure test them and resurface them, I got the .051 gaskets so I have enough to play with and still keep the CR at about 8.5:1, thanks for the help. I'll stay away from the scotchbrite pads then.