I'd like to know what some of you recommend for a head gasket for some mild nitrous use. 100-150shot. I know that 150 shot is safe on a stock motor if your careful, so would a felpro performance HG work OK, or should I step up to a copper gasket of some kind?

 

I have used Fel-pro for a while with everything with no problems. If you are going above 250 and doing staged hits then you need to look into the copper gaskets and what not.

 

Head gaskets act as a nice "fuse" for the rest of the engine.

Example, if you were to put on a dead soft copper head gasket, and o-ring the block, and use head studs, then you'd probably blow the pistons apart from detonation.
Whereas if you have good forged pistons and a normal fel-pro rebuilder gasket in there, that'll blow from detonation before the pistons do ($$$).
A head gasket is cheaper than pistons. I'd rather have that fail, if something was going to fail from detonation.

Normal combustion, including nitrous use, can be contained with a normal head gasket. If you're blowing head gaskets and you're upgrading them, you're just masking the problem, and something more expensive is going to blow next (or the deck surface isn't flat and you need to deck the block/heads).


Also, might want to think about changing that sig, lest you get banned for uttering bad words

 

As he said, Felpros are OK but I'd probably end up with studs or at the very least new bolts. That is if you've cracked the engine of course, otherwise I would just spray it.

 

Felpro MLS. Cant go wrong. I also agree with using studs, or at least some new ARP bolts.

 

the "fuse" reasoning is a good one, but in some cases you just need the copper gaskets or they just won't be strong enough. With what you're doing It doesnt sound like you need them anyways though, just a good quality regular type gasket.

If you decide to run a copper gasket though, SCE makes 2 great ones.......they're both self-sealing (they have the printed sealing beads just like regular gaskets around the coolant holes) the regular Titan gasket which requires SS 0-rings (I have those) and theres the Titan ICS (integral combustion seal) which has what amounts to a built in o-ring and doesnt require o-ringing your block.

 

http://www.cometic.com

 

So i guess my SHIM head gaskets is a bad IDEA? Ive got several passes on the motor with 200 shot,havent seen any problems yet.Im just asking,but I dont use what you call a head gasket,I use the STEEL shims GM factory part number.Maybe because I have an engine built for spray,my compression is greater with the shims.I know they are half as think as a regular head gasket.Piston to valve clearence is real close this way,but it makes some big power numbers that way. Maybe I might need to look in to the other gaskets,dont want to blow an engine!!!

 

The big gripe I've heard about shim type gaskets is sealing of the water ports, other than that they seal incredibly well. The Buicks run very high levels of boost on stock shim gaskets, as do many other cars. The extra bolts on a 350 compared to the Buicks and Fords make them seal better, so they can go pretty far even on basic gaskets. One guy on another board with a boosted setup was running mid-low 9s on corteco cheapie rebuild style gaskets.