Copper head gaskets

[BenzBoy]

Has anyone had any experience of them?
I'm thinking of getting a pair for the V8 - ordinary head gaskets are about £50 so I might as well get a copper set made and lower the compression for the blowers.
On the net I've heard good and bad - some say that they blow constantly, others that they're better than stock gaskets...
Any advice gratefully received! ;D

[guz]

not up to your kinda power
but i only fitted copper on minis.

[igbandy]

used to have loads of problems with copper headgaskets on the 4 pot land rover engines, then went onto fibre ones and the problem was solv-ed. Maybe the custom made jobbies are far superior tho.

[hairnet]

uprated steel

wouldnt copper cause heat problems

[iRocco]

I think it all depends of the surfaces your mating up. I think there's a rule about not fitting copper gaskets between alloy heads and cast blocks - something to do with the different temperatures in which the materials exband and contract........I might be wrong though:

I put a copper head gasket on my 1293cc and 1150cc A series engines. The 1293cc was fine - never had any problems, however, the 1150cc blew the gasket about every 3000 miles. I later found out that the top of the block wasn't truly flat as it had a slight dip over cylinder number 4 (the idiot's who built the block for me must have curse word it up!). After I got the block skimmed again everything was a-ok. There's a copper gasket on my 1380cc that's been there since the engine was built by Swiftune - again, never had any problems with it.

So, all in all I think they're a good buy - however, as is with guz, I've not had any experience with V8's.

[BenzBoy]

Thanks for the replies. I would be mounting it between an alloy head and cast iron block, so perhaps they might not be suitable. I'll have a look on some of the US hotrod sites to see what sort of things they use them on.
There was a thing in Retro Cars that advertised copper head gaskets for £70 so it just got me thinking... I'll look into it a bit more

[racer86]

id steer well clear, i had nothing but trouble with copper gaskets, they blew on my 998, 1275 and 1380 mini. whenever i replace one (either when building an engine of replacing a copper one) i use Payen. they are amazing and ive never had a single problem and ive used them on everything, chevette, metro, minis, ect

[igbandy]

or if they are available, you could go for Composite head gaskets, which will lower the compression ratio a tad (ideal for turbotasticshenanigans) and they are also sticky and don't seem to blow very often. I have used Composites on Rover V8 and they are great I have no complaints about them.