They suck & blow at the same damn time...

Hers's pics from the front head of my 4th set. Just tore it down today (yesterday).
What's causing this is the fact that the warrenty work originally done, they didn't deck/mill the block & heads flat.
This past time, was a non OEM gasket, with arp studs torqued 5lb-ft at a time to 100, or 105lb-ft & retorqued after a 1/2 hour of running. Lasted about 6 months.








The cool thing tho, is notice how a can of Seafoam (applied following their directions, in 1/3 of a can intervale - that's 2/3 of a cup - through the intake tos tall it, or immediate kill it for 5 min, then recrank. When smoking dies down, drive around, make liberal use of the upper rpm range several times) Completely nuked the carbon from the combustion chambers.
(For people that don't know, disregard any fluid in any picture, it dumps in when you break the seal to the intake manifold & the cylinder heads - it is not due to leaking)
This time last year when I replaced the head gaskets the first time & did the head porting:






This time:



Cyl #6 (Normal)



Cyl #4 (note the carbon build-up where the head gasket is blown)







Cylinder #4



Cylinder #6





I've been off water injection for a while now. So things started dirtying up a bit. But you can see the MASSIVE amount of difference it can make just by looking at the combustion chamber where the coolant was dumping in -> Mint. The valve cutouts for the piston ->Spotless.
Real water injection looks even better. The piston (minus the squish area) stays clean!
Water Injection PWNS
WI2WIN



Coolant + Oil + Exhaust + 80psi pump
=



Somebody take that batter & make some muffins!

 

FYI the astute will notice the bank blowing in the exact same place...
When I get around to pulling the rear bank I expect two places to be blown again... Coolant on #1 & #3.

 

from what i have read, the oem gaskets are the best... i havent seen any otehr head gaskets as nice

 

Im guessin thats a camry right? If not I want your 4 valve heads and fancy pistons

 

It's not clear, are you running a turbo... if so i can help... have a 750hp 3.8 Buick Regal T-Type 29lbs of boost!

 

I run a different turbo setup, about every other month at this point LoL!
It's been an ongoing problem for years. It blew 2 stock, one when i hit 230 & survived a few turbo setups back to N/A for awhile until it blew again. I may cut out a set of copper headgasket for the fun of it, but a new JDM engine is surely going to be a winter project.

 

wow! looks like that seafoam really did work well!

 

You need some copper gaskets for sure, call up a couple of the companies and see what they have. There's 2 viewpoints regarding headgaskets and turbos: A head gasket blowing out may save a broken rod or scorched piston; Or, run some copper gaskets and hold that pressure in there. Cylinder pressure is something you should calculate, and I hope your'e running wastegates to keep from over boosting cause that'll do it. I blew out a headgasket and part of my aluminum head on a turbo Buick 3.8, with dual wastegates so it can still happen. You also may want to check into boost management electronics. One thing for sure, turbo's can make a ton of power but they're much more difficult to work with than superchargers.

 

98, power modifications have nothing to do with the head gaskets blowing.