I am building a B18C1 motor and want to know what head gasket to use?

I know that the OEM Honda one is 3 multi-layered steel. What is the thickness of the OEM one? If the OEM gasket is installed correctly, how much extra HP or boost will an OEM one be able to handle?

What about the aftermarket ones like Cometic? Regarding the materials used, are they superior to the OEM ones? I also know that there are many different thicknesses yielding different compression ratios.

For my purposes I want to be able to give it 300 crank HP or 250 WHP. Yet I still want to maintain the original 10.0:1 compression. I am inclined to maintain the OEM gasket thickness.

 

just get the cometic gasket. ive used 3 of them on my ls/vtec. never had a problem. theyre a little more then the oem one but worth it

 

OEMs hold up just fine. Its like .029"s thick if Im not mistaken (seems a little odd because thats not a round metric #). Cometics work just as well...to be honest, from what I've seen they are almost identical to the OEM.

 

I just got installed felpro head gasket, but am only using 2 layers, cost $50, 3 months and 4,000 miles later, still no problem.