Stefan

Ok, who on here knows the mean time to failure for one of these?

I had a full engine rebuild last spring and now 20,000km later, I have a leak in my head gasket. Seems a wee bit early to me since I don't drive the car hard on a track almost ever. It went out once this year for a track day.

Meanwhile, my 86 prelude is up to almost 300,000km and still on the original motor!

Thoughts? I'm thinking this should be a free-bee from the mechanic.

Sam Lin

Mean time to failure? Head gasket should NEVER fail on a properly tuned engine!

Sam

Stefan

That's what I thought! This should be an interesting conversation at the garage. I don't get the feeling it's a free job.

lart951

I blown 3 head gaskets in a period of 4 months, total labor $ 3200.00.Then I sold the car to my father in law rick_951 (Ricardo)but he was smarter than me he took the car to Guru racing. Danno he is the "MAN", he replaced the head gasket with a metal gasket , replaced the authotority chips with guru chips, dyno tune the car and now the old man(my father in law) is running the car with 19psi boost !!fudge!!. I wan't my car Back.
Botton line; tune your car with a properly air/fuel mix you don't have t worry about head gaskets.
my 2 centavos

Luis

Stefan

Hmmmm .... sounds like time for another mechanic. Damn, I think there is only 1 left in town that I haven't used.

It's getting to the point where either I become a mechanic, a millionaire, or sell this car.

TonyG

Sam Lin

>>Mean time to failure? Head gasket should NEVER fail on a properly tuned engine! <<

This is not correct. It is very possible to have a stock or wide fire head gasket fail with a perfect a/f ratio and no detonation.

It's called.. "deformation of the fire ring". This means that the fire ring gets deformed due to head/block movement or high cylinder pressures...

Once the fire ring is deformed (not round), pressure will escape the cylinder and enter the cooling system, resulting in pushed out coolant.

Very common.

This is one major reason why I made the comment that the wide fire is a piece of crap. The fire ring can too easily be distorted since the only thing supporting it is a fiber composition layer which is easily pushed back, allowing the fire ring to become out of round.......

Stefan

Thanks Tony,

But to me it still seems odd. I mean, would porsche expect a blown head gasket on a new 944T after 20,000km and 1 year of ownership?

Or are there other factors on an older car that cause the lack of proper combustion which then breaks the gasket?

My mechanic said he's had a problem with a few of the cars he's done in the past 2 years.

My car has had starting issues where I have to crank it for 15 or so turns sometimes for it to start. Other times it fires right up. We're thinking it's the temp sensor, but I don't think it would cause this problem.

I'm just trying to decide if this should be a warranty claim by me after the engine rebuild or if it is possible for this type of failure to occurr normally.

EZRider

So then what's the best head gasket to use...stock?

Peckster

You had it done spring 2003 or 02? Most shops will warranty their work for a year, I know mine does. I just got a second head gasket done gratis.

fast951

I guess I must be one of the lucky few. I always use the WideFireRing HG, it's a track car and a dyno test mule. I ran as high as 25-26psi on many occasions on the dyno. Tracked the car at 20+psi boost for hours, and yet to experience a blown headgasket. Let's say 60+ track hours, 140+ dyno pull....
I use the stock studs with an O-ringed head.

If things are so far out of tune (or using improper fuel), yes you will blow a headgasket. It's much better to blow a headgasket than to destroy a complete engine.

Watch out who you listen to! Keep it simple, efficient and inexpensive. Not all ideas/suggestions that get tossed around this list are accurate.

ewainwright

Thanks fast951.

In your own determnation is that metal gasket worth it. I've noted that several people had some issues with installing it.

User 41221

Hey Tony,

I assume you are a fan of o-ringing, correct? You always seem to have pretty strong opinions about things, and I know you've been around these cars long enough to back it up, so where's the weakest link in that scenario? A lot of folks, myself included view the headgasket as a safety check to keep from putting holes in your pistons.

This would be the first time that I have seen anyone refer to the widefire as a "piece of crap", and after driving about 60k miles on one in my previous 951, I would be inclined to disagree, but I don't push my engines as hard as I am guessing you do (stock cam, stock compression, 15lbs boost for me). The failures that I have noted on the widefire headgasket usually have more to do with user error (poor tuning, improperly torquing the head gasket) than any flaw in the head gasket itself.

I assume that the reason Huntley, Guru, etc are coming out with metal head gaskets are due to people pushing the envelope further on the performance of the 951 engine, but at that point, the $ investment starts getting pretty significant. For a mostly street driven car with under 400rwhp, isn't it overkill? For me, it isn't worth it, for others, maybe it is.

Regards,

fast951

I'm yet to persinally use the MLS gasket, so I can't comment on it either way. I do know of one application that is using it, but it's too soon to judge.

The WFR gasket works for me... and I push my car much harder than others.

ewainwright

Thanks fast951 - please consider taking credit cards directly

fast951

I'm working on it as I write this....