At what point does it become beneficial for a pump-gas turbo motor to go with O-rings? Are there any disadvantages (aside from machining costs) to going with O-rings?

 

A pump gas turbo motor should not need o-rings. A good pair of bolts should hold the heads down to about 20psi. In my experiance I have not seen a case for a street car to run 0-rings on a camaro

 

Assuming for a moment that O-ringing the heads/block were free...would you still do it anyway on a street motor? I mean, are there any advantages at all to doing it at under 20psi?

 

With a good tune you should not have any problems blowing head gaskets. When you decide to o-ring the block, I believe the only gasket you can use is copper. Copper has a tendency to leak. If you do a search on this topic it has been talked about many times.

 

Stick to non-oringed heads and just use ARP studs or ARP bolts even. They have been proven at 20psi for the bolts and the studs above that.

Jose

 

To run an o-ringed block you should use copper head gaskets and they are very hard to seal up around the water jackets.
Fortunetly there is newer/better technology out there. Alot of race cars including ProMods are now using MLS head gaskets. MLS or Multi Layered Steele seal better than copper/o-ring set ups and dont require any machine work. It does require though that the block and heads are flat and extremly clean. So overall its cheaper and better and proven.

Kevin