I finally got the car completely put back together yesterday and fired it up. on a good note it sounds sweet with the cam and open headers!!!
on a bad note I obviously did not torque the heads down good enough or the geskets are too thin because it is leaking very bad at the bottom of both heads.
so I either have to tear it down again and spend a few more days on it or pay a shop to get it done sooner.
I do not want to pay a shop but I need it done ASAP. do you all know the average price range for head gaskets replacements?

 

what area are you located?

 

give some details of the combo, what head gaskets did you use? What head fasteners?

 

I am located in Jacksonville, florida. I used brand new OEM head bolts. I used Cometic gaskets. I think the problem might be that I did not have th heads milled and the gaskets are just too thin. I am going to try using thicker gaskets and have the heads milled a little. hopefully that will work.

 

From what i've always heard, use GM gaskets and ARP bolts, thats what i'm doing for my f13/heads in a few weeks

 

The stock head bolts will stretch once they're tightened down. It almost feels like your stripping them. That's why you can't reuse them. You probably didn't have the bolts tight enough.

 

So do you think I should retighten them? I talked to a performance shop here locally and they will replace the gaskets and tighten them correctly for $900

 

that'd be way too much cash for me to fork over.

 

How did you torque them down? To what spec?

 

I torqued them to 22 ft. lbs., then 90 degrees, then 50 degrees, I dont remenber all of them but I followed the LS1HOWTO.com guide. I printed it out and did what it said

 

The Cometics gaskets are the problem if the block and heads has not been finished to a 50 or finer Ra.
Ya should have read that at their sight.

Put ARP bolts in it the next time,they are reusable.

Surprised no one caught the Cometics gasket thing.

 

I was just about to say the same thing! Cometics are a no no for just doing a head swap on a stock engine. GM gaskets should have gone back on due to the surface finish. If you bring the car to a shop for the fix, please find someone that is knowlegeable with the LS1. It will bite you in the *** again if you don't. Good luck!

 

Did you torque the heads to 22lbs just once? With stock bolts you need to retorque it at least twice at 22lbs with the cometics before doing the angle torque. With Angle torquing sequence the gasket needs to be compressed before the angle sequence, one torque pass at 22lbs won't compress the gasket as the first few bolts you torqued will be loose after you torque the whole head. If the gaskets aren't compressed before the angle torque it will never have sufficient clamping force on the head gaskets.

Also with Cometics a light layer of copper gasket spray helps a lot.

If this were my car, I would replace the bolts with ARP's anyway. My vote is for insufficient head bolt torque and not the gaskets.

 

If ya had ever gone through the Cometics thing ya wouldn't say that.
Don't care if ya pull the bolts to 150 ft lbs it ain't gonna hold water .

 

thanks for the replies, I am pretty sure that it is due to the heads not being milled and gaskets too thin. it will be fixed soon. thanks again