copper vs steel gaskets

my motor could use a thinner head gasket, it's a 383 with aluminum heads, and i was wondering if i would have to use gaskets with steel rings or if i could use gaskets with copper rings... the thinner ones have copper rings, thats why i ask

The copper ring gaskets are typically for high performance applications, so my guess would be yes, they will work.

cool, thanks for the advice. my time working in the electrical field has taught me, among other things, that copper is much more malleable, so i figured it would conform to irregularities better and "smash" better than steel would

cool, thanks for the advice. my time working in the electrical field has taught me, among other things, that copper is much more malleable, so i figured it would conform to irregularities better and "smash" better than steel would

That's what makes it a high performance gasket material. It seals much better on high compression engines.

One thing to keep in mind is that a thinner head gasket makes a higher compression ratio, sometimes bringing this up by .2 points. Keep this in mind if you find your engine starts pinging a bit more.

my motor could use a thinner head gasket, it's a 383 with aluminum heads, and i was wondering if i would have to use gaskets with steel rings or if i could use gaskets with copper rings... the thinner ones have copper rings, thats why i ask


solid copper head gaskets would give the best durability....especially on older engine with aluminum....

yeah i was aiming for more compression because i am building a copy of a motor built by chevyhiperformance magazine. only problem is they got the heads milled so they went down from 65cc chambers to 64, so i figured that i would get thinner head gaskets than the ones they used to somewhat offset the fact that mine will still be 65 cc chambers