[screamingchief]

As of now,the only decent/functional 350 headgasket choices are the Cometics,and the Innovative Seal (formerly ROL IIRC).

There have been some discussion about that in the street forum not too long ago,a search should bring up those threads.

All the other headgaskets are made for the larger bore engines,and thus have too much "dead space" around the top of the bores.

One of the main reasons some of us are looking at the 350 for a boost appl. is because the smaller bores should allow for slightly more headgasket material between the bores which hopefully may add some % of strength to a known weak spot in the larger bore applications,this would be especially important with regards to the center cylinders with the siamesed exhaust ports (3-5 & 4-6) as that's where pontiac headgaskets are most likely to fail.

HTH

Bret P.

[Squidward]

OK, thanks. I looked at the Cometic. Just over a bill - definitely not your run of the mill "Mr. Gasket" stuff.

I've searched for Total Seal rings, with 3.915 bore and 1/16-1/16-3/16 rings. Found a couple of places. Is it better to get something a tiny bit bigger and file back to the proper gap, or does ordering the exact size usually get ya in the ballpark with just a little bit of tweaking needed?

[screamingchief]

Originally Posted by Squidward

OK, thanks. I looked at the Cometic. Just over a bill - definitely not your run of the mill "Mr. Gasket" stuff.

I've searched for Total Seal rings, with 3.915 bore and 1/16-1/16-3/16 rings. Found a couple of places. Is it better to get something a tiny bit bigger and file back to the proper gap, or does ordering the exact size usually get ya in the ballpark with just a little bit of tweaking needed?

Sorry about the late reply...

Yeah,cometics aint cheap,but they are very good gaskets,you pay for what you get & vice versa.

Anyhow,on to the main question.

I dunno if I'd say it's "better" per-se,but yeah some ring sets are sold .005"-.010" over size to allow for "file fitting" to the given bore size allowing more precise final gap spec.

IIRC these end up being the same size rings that a 283/307 SBC uses,so they come in a good variety of oversizes and such.

HTH

Bret P.