I picked up a 92 civic with a b16a swapped into it. The head gasket is leaking and I'm looking for advise on what you guys recommend for brands and where to buy from. So far I've looked at cometic hg from maperformance and I'm thinking about going felpro for the rest of the seals. Figured if I'm in there I might as well freshen everything up. Any input will be much appreciated. Also I'm looking at boosting it later with somewhere in the 10 to 14 psi range. This is the reason I don't really want to go oem.

 

mugen from jhpusa

 

Are you high?

OEM can handle 10-14PSI just fine. Go OEM. It's not about the gasket, it's about the quality of the build work done.

 

Well, if you plan on boosting, no need for an expensive exhaust manifold gasket. But there's an OEM gasket kit for the head. Valve cover gasket, intake, o-rings, distributor, o-ring, exhaust, and grommets. I'd got for that. It'll make your motor happy.

But if you dont want that, um, avoid taking the intake mani. off. Distributor, and valve cover so you won't have to replace those gaskets. LOL.

 

OEM Honda.

 

I'm looking at tearing it all down. There's getting to be a lot of frothy oil in the oil cap and I feel, being I didn't do the swap, I want to tear it out and make sure the rings and cylinder walls still look good as well as the rod bearings and all that. But it sounds like everyone is pritty set on oem, I just don't want to have problems down the road if I decide to boost it higher than that, so I guess I'm just trying to plan for the future.

 

I just read about 2hrs ago that headgaskets are only made by 3 companies...and that felpro makes honda gaskets.

I have no proof to back this up, Im just telling you what I read.

Theres claims of people well into 300hp though with felpro, so perhaps.

 

THIS^^^

 

All the guys who race use OEM Honda gaskets. Felpro is generally just as good also. Felpro is a division of Federal Mogul and they make a lot of OEM parts for different car manufacturers. I don't know if they make Honda OEM head gaskets, but they are known to make some Honda parts, Ford, Mazda, etc.

What a lot of people overlook is using head studs, or not getting their head resurfaced or when it's surfaced they don't use the correct finish. Too smooth or too rough won't sandwich the material correctly. Those will lead to head gasket failure.

 

Honda.
3 layer metal gaskets ftw. I boosted 11 months on mine, then took off the turbo kit, slapped on a Y7 head and still using the same gasket.


Get the head resurfaced.

 

I would get an OEM Honda gasket. Thats what most people use. Cometics are hit or miss.

Id replace all your gaskets and hardware on the cylinder head while its off too. Id pick up two sets of manifold studs like these
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...#ht_2735wt_825

Then get a new valve cover gasket, IM gasket, exh. mani gasket, and replace your dizzy o-ring, timing belt, water pump etc while its all out!