Blown Head Gasket

[Shaun]

GDay,

After a several year rebuild, i finally trailered my car to the tuners for tuning. During this process, however, the guys discovered that No. 6 plug was fouling due to small amounts of water in the cylindar. They believed that the head was cracked due to the fact that the cooling system was not being pressurised, and the lack of water in the oil. I trailered it home and pulled the engine out (again), head came off, and i discovered that the head gasket had blown between no. 6 bore and the water jacket. I was very happy that the castings were all as new.

I am concerned, however, as to why the gasket failed. The gasket was a Tomie item and i used ARP 10mm head studs torqued up to specs. On the dyno, the car was seeing 1.2 Bar at 3000rpm with 0.82 GT35r turbine housing, and controlling boost was extremely difficult. Its apparent that this housing was too small, so ive got a 1.06 in its place.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, but i was wondering what brand of head gasket the guys in the know use. The Tomie one that failed only had about 2-3mm of sealing between the sealing ring and the water jacket. Ive heard of an Australian mob that makes good head gaskets. Im not necessarily looking for brand name jap sh1t, just something that works.

Thanks for any assistance,

Shaun.

PS. Ill post up some pics later for those that may be interested.

Edited May 29, 2006 by Shaun

[Abo Bob]

Have you had your injectors flow tested and cleaned recently?

Cometic make a fairly good quality gasket and they are pretty cheap by comparison to big Jap brands.

[Craved]

cometic metal gaskets get another vote here ..

[Duncan]

ACL also make metal head gaskets locally.

but there is nothing wrong with the tomei head gasket plenty of people use them in big hp cars

[Shaun]

Have you had your injectors flow tested and cleaned recently?

Cometic make a fairly good quality gasket and they are pretty cheap by comparison to big Jap brands.

They are brand new injectors, but i was going to get them flow tested anyway, just to be sure.

Ill ring Cometic tomorrow.

Thanks