I am running a cometic headgasket on my Laskey Racing engine. I had been losing coolant consistently, and I finally figured out it is the headgasket. My mechanic wants to charge me $450 to retorque the head or $900 to install a new headgasket. He said that the cometic dealer said there have been problems with the expansion and contraction of their headgaskets causing small leaks. What headgaskets do y'all run? Will OEM hold 15+psi of boost? This is a lot of damn money for something that I haven't seen go wrong with anyone elses boosted S2k. What causes something like this to happen? THanks,
Jonathan

 

That's pretty damn expensive just for a re-torque. I used OEM but you cannot run OEM with anything over 87mm bore.

 

I'm running pretty much the same overall total engine CR after boost as you are on my stock HG with no problems. I would say that the stock HG will do you just fine up to probably 20 psi with your setup.

 

I think I have the same bore as stock. All they did was sleeve the block and put in 9:1 CR pistons I believe.

 

I've installed the OEM headgasket on AEBS sleeved and o-ring block.

 

they might have put in a different bore size. You will need to double check. If you are at stock 87mm bore I would definately goto a OEM gasket.

 

Mkay. THanks fellas.

 

Are you on stock head bolts or ARP studs? The torque sequence is very important as well.

 

ARP studs. What is the torque sequence? Thanks John.

 

I don't have a scanner, but the Helms manual shows what the sequence is. Perhaps someone can post it, but your mech should be able to find it. Off the top of my head you torque the bolts to a certain ft. lb. The final torquing is done by degrees rather than by ft. lbs. I did not feel comfortable with this so when I re-installed my head I used fresh OEM head bolts and a new Honda hg. I torqued the bolts to 80ft lbs in 3 or 4 increments. No leaks whatsoever, but I'm only at 10psi.