Curious - what would be a maximum power that could be run with a group A head gasket.

obviously not expecting a 600bhp engine to be running one, but as for mine... a T34 running 28 - 30psi on greys would a Group A head gasket be more than upto the job?

Just got a few symptons showing now of the head gasket giving way, it hasnt been on the car for more than 5 months use but id have thought it would have coped with my power more than comfortably

 

dont think so m8 i think i have been told about 20 psi is max could be wrong

 

i think power wise is around teh 360 mark but could be wrong

i had a 330 conversion on mine and after 12 months it started leaking at the back corner again slightly

 

I think it might struggle on that setup....... wire rung block helps though

 

guys you surer its the headgasket and not the way it was fitted/way its driven


as theres a few on here with group A gaskets and get along fine

 

you have to consider the condition of the head and block face when fitting a different gasket, if you have them both refaced and also have the block wire rung ( like me ) then it should be fine !!

 

And me

 

i ran 30 psi on t35 etc on grpa gasket for two years and no probs
loads of 0-60s and 1/4 miles

 

Thats what we like to hear Basky

 

unfortunatly not mate, need a job done quickly and not a one week job that took 4 weeks down there

had the head off this afternoon, block face, head face and head gasket were all in perfect condition... obviously not the head gasket gone then... but hey ho

 

what symptoms did you have then Kelvin.

also, if its not the gasket,what is it.

 

Hi Kelcos

I was going to run the same as u...But in the end as I couldn't get the car to Stu's for a week for mapping, so I went for one of his off the shelf Stage 3 chips instead... Mark (MAD) set it up to to peak at 28 psi and I think it holds about 24 psi.....This was a massive difference over my GGR 335 setup But within 50 miles the Group A head gasket went exactly where Mark said it would and started spitting water out of the front right hand side of the engine as u look at the car head on. It shows as specks over the water tank. Had the head off, everything cleaned up and skimmed where needed and as I am not going over 420 bhp on this engine fitted a new style cometic. Had no probs since...

I hope this helps...

Cheers Malc

 

i ran mine on the same conversion about 400bhp and it was fine till i fitted a 50 shot of NOS the i blew it in about 10 miles. i think 400 bhp is the very max for group A. tri metal is the way foward so get ya wallet out!

 

Personally I think a group a gasket is on borrowed time above stage 3 but I'd still hope for it to last more than 5 months

How many miles did it do in 5 months?

I used a cometic at that power with no issues and if you're feeling flush the 4 layer WRC gasket is supposed to be the best choice.

 

Just to clear up... the Stu mentioned isnt as in Stu @ MSD before anyone thinks im critisizing him...but another close friend were everything went wrong the other week and it all took far to long to get it all done... not fault of my mate stu

Just had a call from a mate and will have a nice multi layer wrc gasket with me tomorrow, will have head sent away and checked and probably get some head work done while its all apart (seems daft not to at this point!)

will probably sell the turbo now and upgrade that aswell

Cheers Malc & saphycozzie-adz for the replies.


Dave cos... over the past few weeks my turbo cooler has split, then days after i took that out my radiator burst, and the past few times its been used it seems to burst a hell of a lot of water out the header tank cap within moments of parking up each time, i guessed that maybe i was loosing compression into the water ways and id started to loose boost aswell so thought maybe the head gasket wasnt holding up to it.

had checked all other possibilitys over the past few days and decided id take the chance taking it apart just for peace of mind.

my only thought now could be were id fitted a new water pump a few weeks ago and maybe hadnt bled the system correctly and had a fair bit of an airlock building up pressure and escaping from the header cap each time i parked up.

probably my own fault for not doing a job properly but no harm in taking the head off, atleast it will now benefit from a stronger gasket, bit of head work and a general clean up inside

 

gurnE id say somewhere around 1200 miles at maximum, but pretty much everytime its been used its been either at santa pod or brands hatch so not had the easiest of lives so far!!

 

may have looked ok the gasket but still may have been the problem.

What happens when you change the gasket and it happens again.

 

ow mate... dont tempt fate, im certainly hoping it wont do it again.

if the head gasket was a weak point but not showing a blatantly obvious weak point then hopefully having it all apart will remedy it

 

hope so.

 

Wire ringing the block helps doesn`t it, or not

 

I still have the std head gasket and have been running 22psi for a while with no probs...........................yet

 

Me too

 

yes it does

i know an engine builder who uses standard EEC-IV gasket with wire ringing and reckons it's bombproof

IF all surfaces are flat then a gasket should last IMO, i just removed mine when i started the engine rebuild and it was a standard gasket, and was in good condition.

i asked my tuner ultimately what the best choice for me would be, and he told me;

Multilayer WRC (£350 4layer, best choice by far if budget will allow)
GrpA ( £60 but will need regular checks for failure )
GrpA with wire ringing ( £160 all in.will cope with 450-500bhp , so will be fine for my 380ish

i also learnt recently from another source that back in the touring car days they ran without a head gasket

 

Good info that Bud-Weis