ST185 Stock Head Gasket vs. Felpro (Graphite)

Guys,

So TIFU... I torqued the head bolts with a faulty torque wrench. There was a very faint clicking, so some of the bolts got torqued unevenly for the final pass (using ARP studs). I tried to fix the issue by unbolting in the sequence provided by the BGB, and retorqued with with a different unit, and now I have all bolts at 65 ft-lbs. However, I'm using a brand new OEM headgasket (graphite). I searched on here and mr2 forums, and some users said that once the head gasket is compressed it cannot be reused. Is this true? If, so now I'm here with this $70 dollar mistake. I can get a felpro gasket locally for $49 bucks, but I unsure of the quality.

Thanks in advance, any advice welcomed.

-Adrian

For the price I wouldn't take the risk. $70 is pretty cheap for a car part, and if it does end up leaking you're looking at a lot more than $70 worth of headache.

IMHO I would spend the $100 and get a Cometic mls gasket and call it good. I've had the oem gasket fail, with ARP studs, and the Felpro is even weaker. Just my $0.02

GT4_DRED":7556s56m said:

IMHO I would spend the $100 and get a Cometic mls gasket and call it good. I've had the oem gasket fail, with ARP studs, and the Felpro is even weaker. Just my $0.02

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The block has been decked, and the head was skimmed flat. It looks like the jobs were done by two different people in the same machine shop, the short block looks like it was well done. The head has a few nicks in the surface, that's one of the reasons I decided for OEM in fear that a MLS will not completely seal.

If the nick doesn't grab a fingernail, then youll be fine. Of it does, then it all depends.

r-town":ymrzk53i said:

once the head gasket is compressed it cannot be reused. Is this true?

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Technically, from an engineering "best practises" perspective, it's probably true.

In practical terms, it depends. How much was the gasket over-compressed. It's a judgement call. If I were in your situation, and just loosened and retorqued without doing anything to reposition the head or gasket, then I would use the gasket as-is.

As has been advised already, if you're going to spring for ARP studs, it makes sense to spring for an mls gasket while you're at it. I always do. In fact I have a Fel-Pro head gasket I didn't use and would be happy to give you if you were local. It's not worth shipping.

___Scott___":zhjurioy said:

r-town":zhjurioy said:

once the head gasket is compressed it cannot be reused. Is this true?

Click to expand...

Technically, from an engineering "best practises" perspective, it's probably true.

In practical terms, it depends. How much was the gasket over-compressed. It's a judgement call. If I were in your situation, and just loosened and retorqued without doing anything to reposition the head or gasket, then I would use the gasket as-is.

As has been advised already, if you're going to spring for ARP studs, it makes sense to spring for an mls gasket while you're at it. I always do. In fact I have a Fel-Pro head gasket I didn't use and would be happy to give you if you were local. It's not worth shipping.

Click to expand...

TY for the feedback. The reason I'm using the ARP head bolts is because I already had them from a previous build they have less that 2k miles on them. I was able to find a OEM head gasket locally at a very good price. Going to store the engine for a while as I'm the process of reassembly the whole interior thanks to a clogged heater core. :doh: