Are these $200+ headgaskets worth it?

s13 redtop sr20det. Greddy, Tomei, Nismo etc. What makes them so special? They advertise as being metal and you can select your thickness. But are they really stronger than the oem headgasket $80. My stock head gasket is fine, Im just upgrading my turbo, will be pushing around 18psi. Just wondering if they are nessesary for that much boost. Or what's the maximum boost/hp for an oem hg?

its pretty important to have a strong head gasket but not 100% necessary to spend all that money. call up cometic, tell them what you have. i bought a multi layer steel HG with full custom specs and it cost me like 90 bucks. they should be able to make whatever. they might even have a stock SR part number.

basically the aftermarket HG kits (which i recommend cosmetic for around $120) you get the reliability above 400whp. where most sr headgaskets tend to fail around...so unless your going over 400whp i wouldnt worry about going aftermarket hg

okay thanks for the info

The Apex-i / Power Enterprises gaskets are the best.

Greddy/Cosworth/Tomei/ect in the second teir.

Cometic is so garbage I'd never pay for one and don't buy it if you didn't resurface your block or head.

I'll be running an unopened motor up around the 400 mark. but I'll be doing it on MS109 so its not exactly unproven territory.-

how is cometic garbage? it uses OEM style multilayer steel construction. ive seen their HG hold 30 psi peak boost. and also, if your running a MLS headgasket, why wouldnt you resurface your block and head? it just seems like a logical step that if you skipped it your cutting way too big of a corner.

well, as we all know more boost is more pressure trying to pop the HG, so if nothing else, better safe than sorry, and most of the MLS gaskets are about the same, depending on what mill you have you can find them from around $90 and on up to well over the $200 mark, just do a little research on it and find one that is spec'd to handle what you want to do.