Head gasket options
 

After 3 months and 1300 miles, my 535 decided to let a head gasket go. I was using Butlers head gaskets #SPM-19376, which I see they no longer offer. Possibly due to high failure rate? Looks like Butler is offering 2 gaskets for non-o-ring'd blocks now. Cometic and Titan copper. I was just wondering if there are any other options to look into before placing an order. Thanks.

I would probably go with the Cometic, along with a light coat of copper spray before installation. We have used the Titan gasket in the past on our drag radial car with a small block chevy and an F2 procharger and had an issue with them trying to seep coolant, wasn't anything bad, but just seepage. We went to the MLS gasket, and never had another problem with that, but we lightly coat them with copper coat....

Butler got back to me and they're overnight shipping me .050" Cometic head gaskets and new intake gaskets. This is a real pain in the ass to have to deal with, but Butler is stepping up, as they always have during this entire build. I cannot say enough good things about them. Top notch company to do business with...

Thanks for taking the time to make a recommendation. Much appreciated.

Give Herb a call at Luhn performance and ask him about their head gaskets. They have their own Cometic 5 layer gaskets made specifically to their specs. From what he was telling me, their head gaskets are superior to the regular cosmetic gaskets for boosted Pontiac applications.

Cant hurt to call and ask for their thoughts...

He convinced me, so I ended up picking up a set for my build.

SPEED SAFE, NICK

Luhn's Cometics are awesome.

In case anyone's interested, the head gasket failure was due to a bad gasket. There was an obvious defect in this gasket. I should have caught it when building the motor, but didn't. Now I'm paying for it. There's an area of the gasket between the cylinders that wasn't cut/folded over/pressed correctly. It was barely touching the head, as seen in the pic. It finally gave out. I can't believe it lasted as long as it did. These gaskets are crap and obviously why Butler quit selling them. The good news is that all the parts should be here tomorrow, so I should be back up and running Saturday.

Do his head gaskets have the different sized cooling holes for the hot spots ?