Well after 5 years of building my new "Killer" slant 6 I tried it out the other day. Ran great,pulled clear to 6500 RPM. Boy was I happy. I knew with this new engine I could finally get in the 11's. Well to make a really long story short my new engine now is back apart in lots of peices. Water had leaked by the copper head gasket and filled two cylinder with coolant. Has any one else used this type of head gasket? I now have all summer,fall and winter to work out all the bugs with this gasket. Any idea's ?? The machine shop did install a o-ring to keep the compression in but the coolant leaked on the other side of the gasket.

Thanks.........

damuel@kalama.com

Did your o-ring have a receiver grove? How thick was the gasket? Copper gaskets usually do what you tell them. I have gotten them from a place that advertises in National Dragster. If you need the name I will try to find it.

Will


slantsix@netzero.net

I did not have a grove in the cylinder head just the block. Also I'm not sure the the gasket was made from "dead soft copper" I took the last two days off from work to get ready for the big race this weekend.I used every old part I had in the shop and threw a "Junk Yard Engine" together. I started it tonight so I guess I'm race ready! This weekend there will be lots of cars running these gaskets so I will be asking lots of question. It would be nice if you could find that address and I'll give them a call. Oh yea the gasket is .040 thick.



damuel@kalama.com

Seems that all the racers using copper head gaskets have their own little "process" to get them sealed.

A while back, Howard Davis talked about how he seals his using a spray-on sealer, I think he called it Halamar but I will have to go back to the SSRN to see. I also remember him saying that they place some thin wall O-rings around all the water holes and also uses some cotton thread along the outer lifter rail. Basically all this "stuff" was stuck in place with the sealer, then "crushed" for a great seal. I would think that doing this would limit the "re-useable" aspect of a copper head gasket, that is, unless you don't mind cleaning all the glue off it between uses.
DD

Will I did make it to the races this weekend and we raced on Friday and Saturday. That junk yard engine ran a 12.29 @ 106 mph. Sunday it rained hard all day. This gave us time for bench racing. Some of the Inliner's I have know for a long time and are very helpful even if I have the differn't engine !!! They told me to replace the copper o-ring in the block with stainless steel,use a softer gasket and put two heavy coats of "Copper Coat" on both sides of the head gasket. They also gave me an address of some one here in the Seattle area that they buy their custom head gaskets from. I will be calling tomorrow and see what they have to say.



damuel@kalama.com

That sounds like good advice to me. I use a lot of copper coat myself.


slantsix@netzero.net