using a Cometic head gasket or an OEM head gasket?

 

the OEM head gasket doesn't seem to have a good rep around here. So I'd go with the Cometic.

 

The cometic gasket blows at about the same rate.
Shitty tune = blown gasket.
Not to mention there isnt a cometic gasket for the car.

 

i found a cometic gasket at horsepowerfreaks.com

but i already ordered the OEM one

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Boilermaker1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The cometic gasket blows at about the same rate.
Shitty tune = blown gasket.
Not to mention there isnt a cometic gasket for the car.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yes the tuning part is always the most important detail. Also helps to learn to listen for detonation, it is a very specific sound and if you hear it you know you need to back off.

 

do you know how to detonation sound, sounds like?

my car is tuned with e-manage...and was tuned by TTL Motorsports with a dynapack

it was tuned 3 months ago and my head gasket blew about 1 month ago

 

it sounds almost like jingling coins together, it can be hard to pick out of the engine noise until you've had someone specifically point it out. But once you know what it is, its really easy to hear.

And while tuning is extremely important, tuning can't always take into account all environmental factors, so you need to be able to hear detonation so you know to back off the boost if the engine is upset.

Detonation also happens a lot more when you boost under heavy engine load, ala 4th or 5th gear at low rpms (1k-3k), its very hard on the bearings and creates a great amount of pressure in the cylinders because the engine isn't flowing efficiently, but the turbo is trying to stuff more air in there. There are just certain things with boost that no amount of tuning will protect your engine from.