Hey, if it seems like I am getting desperate, its only because I am. Dodgem got me thinking about head gaskets. The "fire-ring" in the common Fel-Pro head gaskets isn't exactly round. Why they made them in this silly semi-oval design is beyond me. I went outside and laid a new 1009 Fel-Pro gasket on the deck of a .030 over 440 shortblock I have. The engine in my car is also a .030 440 block so I figure it is a fair mock-up. The quench side is up toward the intake side of the deck and the "fire-ring" does sit very close to the edge of the bore. I don't know if it would actually enter the bore after the head is torqued down but it does sit close. I looked on the Summit site and saw these:
The bores in this gasket appear to be truly round. The bore size is much larger as well. The thickness increase would probably hurt quench a bit but lower compression about a 1/4 point.
It is .038 compressed so the quench stays the same. The slightly larger bore would add volume to the combustion camber like the Fel Pro .051. Both would result in a slight reduction in compression just from the volume increase.
I wonder though that if my cranking compression numbers seem fine, how would I know if I have a gasket failure like Dodgem was talking about? I'm not against pulling the heads, I'm just getting tired of chasing dead ends!
