Head gasket's

[Kent]

Hi to all, its been a while since i have been on here. Some of you are aware that i built my new engine with Victor head gaskets. Here is the story. Both of them have failed in exactly the same spot, both rear cyl's, both had a pin hole burned thru the fire ring in the very back part of the cyl. The first went at 35 k the second went at 53 k. I had a old set of fel pro's and i took the victors and did a side by side comparison. The fire ring thickness on the felpro is .003 thicker than the victor, it is also much tougher, leading me to believe that it has a better quality stainless. Just a word to the wise, there wont be nothin but a fel pro on anything i build.

[gwaidman]

Roger that. I use fel pros in all the engines I build, NEVER have issues. Quality parts are worth the extra to do it right the first time. I learned the hard way too!

[tommac95]

I've replaced more VW diesel headgaskets than i wish to remember. On those aluminum head engines (1980's) the gaskets nearly always leaked after 100/150K miles. The peak pressures in diesels are REALLY demanding.

Thanks for the news about the Victor gaskets. I was pleasantly surprised at the moderate price of the Felpro gaskets....but pretty disenchanted that the block firedeck gets grooved/degraded by the gasketing. So it is particularly nice that/when the gaskets do the job.

And the Duramax gaskets (with aluminum heads) hold up for how long ???

[piersbc]

With the history of these engines would it be a good maintenance procedure to put new Felpro head gaskets on after 100K - 150K miles??? Would you need to rework the heads too??

[ronniejoe]

Never pull the heads unless there is a problem. If you pull them, be sure to check for flatness of the head and deck.

Kent, have you had those heads checked for flatness?

[Robyn]

I have had a several of these beasties apart and the deck will almost always erode around the fire ring. if the eingine is a hi miler its alomost a waste of time to do new gaskets without decking the block and going to the thicker gaskets "Felpro" (.010") also toss the heads and get a set from Clearwater.
All it takes is a few thousands of an inch erosion around the area that blew and you will not hold a gasket. The new felpro gaskets have a much heavier reiforcement at the front and back cylinders as compared to the factory ones used on the earlier 6.5's