Is there anything different that i have to do with a GM steel impala head gasket over like a fel pro, other than bolt it on and go? Thanks in advance-Joe

 

You gotta clean the hell out of the surfaces with a steel gasket. They're much less forgiving to surface condition. If I'm working on an engine in the car, I always use a fel-pro style gasket because it's impossible to get the block as clean as new. If you do get it new looking, chances are you actually created a few small depressions during the cleaning process from focusing on the tough spots. That's risky for sealing too.
I know you get a small compression gain from the steel shim gasket, but I hate doing sh*t twice when the new one leaks. Good luck!

 

if you havent already bought the gaskets, use a Mr Gasket #5716 instead. .026" thick, coated for aluminum heads, and only $33 a pair

 

how do the mr gasket gaskets hold up?

 

i have used them about 20 times on many combos i work on, never had a single coolant leak or compression failure, and every one of those combos was with high milage blocks and most of the times heads that hadnt recently been decked so i would say they work well. havent tried to put a lot of power through them since i have only used them on stock shortblock combos due to deck height reasons, but they held fine on my old stock shortblock combo that went 10.54 @ 132 in a 3600lb car, whatever power that works out to. also have used them on quite a few other high 10 and 11 second cars

 

I looked up P/N 5716 on summit and they say that the gaskets are for iron heads. Are they still right for the aluminum heads?

 

yes they are fine for aluminum heads. much better for aluminum heads IMO than the impala gaskets are

 

i know they will work, but i read that using impy gaskets isn't the best thing to do, because the gasket was designed for an iron/iron application,,not an iron/aluminum setup.
JMHO
-Jason

 

ok sweet. Ill definately use those then. Man why are they so cheap then??