head gaskets

i was putting on my head gaskets tonite and noticed that the water passage is restricted by the gasket, my water passage on the block and heads is about quarter size, maybe a little bit bigger on the block, now the gasket allows only about a size of a pen through, i was wondering if anyone has cut the gasket? and it it would help the heads run cooler

personally i have never heard of it being done b4, did you order the gaskets engine specific? or just general as in small block or big block? if u ordered them as a general type of gasket, it may have to be cut. but either way if it is blocking a flow point, it makes sense to me that you should cut it...

yea there for a standerd sb 350, fel pro makes them, i was temped to cut them i jus came in to see if anyone else has because the water passages on this block are bigger then my old one

I was thinking the same thing, Proabably shouldnt cut em.

The holes are different sizes to control the coolant flow through the block and heads. Do not cut them. You will have cooling problems.

oops :banghead: too late, i knew i shouldnt have worked on this under the influence, but these hole were small as shit, not even a mm in diameter, i cut them to 3/4, what kind of coolent problems should i expect?

i was thinking it might cause you to blow the gasket (Get cooland in your cylinders) but i dunno.

ive replaced a few head gaskets and dont remeber this, i coulda sworn the coolent holes on ther other gaskets were bigger..... god i feel dumb now, cause i cant remember....

You can experience flow that is too fast and the heat from the cylinder walls and heads won't have time to be absorbed by the coolant. Causes hot spots. Can lead to cylinder wall problems also. Cylinder can go out of round.

f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck :redface:

did you already put it all back together?

no but i got the damn heads torqued on, and im anxious to put the bitch in the car

well just un-torque em and fix your problem, haste makes waste, know what I mean.

damn right, i jus got the block machined and got it back bout 2 weeks ago

just make sure you're sober this time.

the first time i changed headgaskets, i was thinkin the same thing. actually on most cars with 150,000+ miles those holes have deteriorated and the become much bigger, and leads to overheating.

btw, nice maro Genopsyde :cheers:

*bows* thankyou sir

damn man, im pissed now, gotta buy some more god damn head gaskets, and yes next time will be done sober, well it doesnt matter now, but i payed a little more attention this time and noticed the hole sizes, but i got it now

and i havnt been completly sober all weekend... lol

been there before man. a few months ago i was building an engine, had the block and heads rebuilt and put her all together and used steel shim gaskets to get and extra 1/4 point compression. had it all back together and was filling the radiator and water started dripping between the heads and the block. turns out that when you use steel gaskets there is absolutly no tolerances for warpage or un-even mating surfaces, and to use em you have to have the heads and block machined. well i didn't want the valves any closer to pisons since i was already running close enough with heads i was using, and the cam i put in it, so i ended up tearing it all back apart and using fel-pro permatorques. ended up spending $80 bucks on just head gaskets. sucks man

ha that sucks, you paod 80 for those, damn! i got my hole engine set for 35 bucks, and i just bought another for 32 lol.. check it out....
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2476626436