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so last night I was finishing puting my head back together and I barely drop my intake manifold on the bottom of my head... the head has been deck already and I'm f%{# ****.... I've never ran a copper head spray, but even my builder said I should be fine. Any advice?
Does your engine builder have a profilometer by any chance? If not, can you feel the deformation with your fingernail?
It looks like that scratch runs across the emboss/stopper so I would be very hesitant to say it's ok. That is your combustion seal and that grove (if deep enough) is going to add a channel for combustion leak.
Not a fan of copper spray as it adds compliance to a joint that should be rigid. An ideal head gasket has the least amount of rubber possible on it and adding copper spray is going the wrong direction.
definitely shave the head again. that scratch is way too deep to take any chances, I can almost guarantee it will leak, and burn a hole in the gasket, making the leak that much larger.
also consider getting a different shop to shave the head. the surface of your head looks a bit too rough for what an MLS gasket requires.
and for the record, copper spray will not seal a combustion pressure leak like you have here. it will only seal imperfections in low pressure areas like oil and coolant ports. I've used copper spray many times, with success in reusing HG's. but I can definitely say that when you torque the head it squishes off the seal ring of the HG around the combustion chambers. it will leave some in the scratch, but I can say from personal experience it wont hold up to combustion. I tried it once on a used HG in a pinch where the hg was leaking a small amount of combustion pressure into a coolant port from a similar and less severe situation as yours, and it didn't even hold for 5 minutes.
be happy if you can get away with resurfacing that head..
Weld across it and mill it flat again? I'm not sure if that'd work in this instance, but i've seen built heads that've dropped valves be recovered by welding up and re-profiling the combustion chamber
Weld across it and mill it flat again? I'm not sure if that'd work in this instance, but i've seen built heads that've dropped valves be recovered by welding up and re-profiling the combustion chamber
I remember Soxle doing that with his B16 project as well. did a wonderful job, actually.
Copper gasket or needing to redeck!
