We use the factory steel competiton head gaskets, .020" thick and trim them
to fit the modified combustion chambers. Then we glue a piece of .012" to
.014" soft copper wire around each cylinder in the first convex ring pressed
into the gasket that will go all the way around the cyinder and will stay
on the top of the liner. All liners are set at .004" to .006" protrusion.
Since we have been doing this we have had NO head gasket failures.
Regards,
Greg Solow
The Engine
Room
Santa Cruz,
Ca.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jack W Drews <vinttr4@geneseo.net>
To: fot@autox.team.net <fot@autox.team.net>
Date: Monday, May 24, 1999 5:17 PM
Subject: blocks and heads
>I prepared a TR4 engine and did all the "right" things. After we had run
>it a number of times in the shop, we found water in the oil. Disassembly
>revealed that the leaking was occurring between the water jacket
>cavities and the lifter gallery. We had set the liner protrusion at .003
>and had used a solid copper head gasket.
>
>I thought with that protrusion and the copper gasket, this problem would
>not occur. This is a repeat of an earlier problem that I had with
>another engine. I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that this is an area
>of the blocks that is prone to leakage. I don't quite know what to do
>about it, since if we have the block decked, then we have to machine the
>liners too, and machining these small amounts are operations that are
>pretty challenging to automotive machine shops (like, I haven't found
>anybody that will touch it).
>
>We solved the problem by going to a conventional head gasket, modified
>to not protrude into the combustion chamber. We gave up some compression
>ratio but at least still have the flow.
>
>Anyone else having this problem?
>--
>uncle jack
>61 TR4 Racer -- fast car
>71 TR6 Street Car -- fun car
>
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