Yeah, I'm going to take some pics of the port work. They are supposed to be finished today. So I should have the car finished and dynoed no later than Monday or Tuesday.

 

Since the heads are being milled, is it necessary to go with a thicker head gasket? I believe they're being milled either ten or twenty thousandths.

Are there any head gaskets that will outperform others?

 

Not at all. If you've ever heard of "quench" before, it's the gap between the top of the piston and the bottom of the head surface. The optimal quench for a street engine is .035". Tighter quench actually helps control detonation and helps the engine tolerate higher compression. On a stock bottom end (SBE in Internet lingo) the Pistons will come out .006" above the block deck. So a .040/.041 MLS head gasket is about perfect.

 

The chamber is smaller than the bore, the idea with milling is usually to increase compression ratio. If you mill .01 then use a .01 thicker head gasket you have lowered compression.

 

Do they need to be cosmetic mls gaskets or will basically any mls gasket work?

If they are milled .02 then do they need to be .042?

 

I've had good experiences with both cometic MLS and Fel-Pro MLS. Have not tried any other brands.

 

Which one do you like better?

 

Anything good about the gm gaskets?

 

The gm gaskets are fine they are just a little thicker .051.

 

both worked fine. I can't say I particularly liked one over the other. The Fel Pro had a relief cut in it enabling you to use MLS with the notched heads. I liked that feature. But neither leaked on me

 

The mechanic told me he's using gm .051 gaskets. I hope they are mls, because the 97-98 were graphite.

 

I use the GM gaskets whenever they fit the application because they're half the price of the Cometic and Fel Pro MLS and they do the job.

 

They are Gm .51 mls gaskets. Do they hold up better than a cometic .40?

 

The GM stuff is crap, it is only meant to holdup for a few hundred thousand miles, can't go the end of the driveway without seeing at least half a dozen broke down GM vehicles due to bad head gaskets.

 

You're on a roll. I've laughed out loud at a lot of your recent posts

 

Unfortunately some people won't see your sarcasm and will spend 3x on a Cometic for their street car LS2.

 

Yep - if you have a proven port coupled with proper guide work and valve job, then $1200 is too cheap.

 

Hand Ported 243s by a guy named "Wuero" in Houston.

 

So does it look like he did a decent job on them?

 

Pics can't show a good job and a job has to be really bad to see in pics.