Thoughts on halfway through the torque sequence and have to stop? Technically they aren't fully compressed

 

I have reused Cometic head gaskets with no problems at all (11.4-1 comp ratio) ...you can spend the money if it makes you sleep better at night...but in the end you are just wasting $$$..

 

not to come off like im picking on you, but the head gaskets aren't crush type, they may compress after initial install but by reusing the gasket, it should be very little difference. i doubt any of the TTY portion of the torquing process will be effected by the old gasket. the difference in gasket height should be made up by the initial ft/lbs torquing of the bolts with your std torque wrench.

on the other hand there is so much variance by the friction of the bolt that their won't be any difference seen in the crush of the gasket. if anyone has torqued down the head bolts in these cars it is far from a clean thread. that is the big benefit of TTY because as torque increases, the torque measured by the wrench is far from accurate due to difference in friction and many other variables. turning by a certain number of degrees in the high torque segment of the process will reduce all those variables to just the installer turning the wrench properly

 

you ant picking on me i just dont believe in being cheap on the end