Head gaskets 351
 

Greetings

I am in need of some info more than anything. I am in the need of head gaskets for a 351.

What I have as of now.

I did send my gaskets to Cometic Gaskets to see what they could do and that would be copper. To do a multilayer set would be crazy expensive mostly because of the tooling and they cant do a felpro style for some reason I don't remember. I don't mind copper but I really don't want to ring the head and block.

So besides begging Bobdylan to split up his set does anyone have any other avenues they went with in the past or working on at the moment for head gaskets?


Just in case someone is wandering it is around 250$ for the set.
I also sent them Magnum intake and exhaust gaskets to reproduce. Well, to be honest, I sent them every gasket I couldn't get from eBay to remake. Just waiting to hear from my builder on a thickness for the gaskets before I get everything made up.

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

Is the $250 for the copper gaskets, or the multi layer steel gaskets?

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

For the copper. I wish multilayer. With tooling, I think he said it could be upwards to 1000 for the first gasket.

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

Have you contacted Thunder V12, those motors used 4 351 heads, they may have head gaskets available.

mail@thunderv12.com

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

Are your orig gkts asbestos sandwiched in copper? David

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

Yes they are but the one burnt through to the lifter.

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

I did try to contact Thunder and I didn't get a reply back. I went there before I tried here.

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

$1000, really? Must be for dies, etc. to make a 'sandwich' gasket. I made an ACAD drawing of a Toro Flow head gasket and submitted it to a local shop for water jet cutting quotes. They can take the ACAD drawing and enter it in their cutting machine using CAD/CAM process to cut them out of soft copper sheets. The cost per gasket would be less than $90, less if they can stack cut them. The same could be done with virtually any head gasket. I would make sure the heads are flat and tie them down with ARP bolts. Nice thing is the copper gaskets would be re-usable!

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

They said tooling (whatever that entails)would be the most expensive part and since there isn't a market for them I would get hit with the cost. If I remember right it would be under 400$ for every other gasket. The copper being reusable is a plus but I really don't want to put rings in the head and block. It would be a 48000 thick copper gasket for under 250$ including shipping. They said I don't need to use rings but they recommend it.

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

Otto, I've been a special eng builder 65yrs now. Most recent custom made 4cyl copper clad asbestos gkts looking just like those of yrs ago were prox $155 ea. Copper edge at cyls and water holes rolled back professionally. I'm not easily satisfied. Some of my engs and rebuilds are 100 grand or more. Everything has to be perfect. I can highly recommend Molina Gaskets. Google and talk to Joe. A pleasure to work w/ him. I make my own custom templates for him, but you may want to send a decent or new gkt to copy. I request one, see how it fits, then order another half dozen, sometimes w/ minor mods. Hope this helps. David

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

Thanks, Dave.
I just looked them up and will be calling them on Monday to get more info. There is a good chance by the end of the week he will have a 351 gasket to reproduce for us. I was going to call Cometic up and see what type of numbers I would need to make it worth it for them to do a multilayer. Still might who knows.

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

Otto, It's my understanding that a while back asbestos was eliminated by law in gkt mfg. Stock on hand could be used until depleted. Molina had a good stock and hopefully can accommodate you. Other mfgs have gone to these various modern methods which are very good. Nitrous, Harleys, etc, they're great. the old asb/ coper clad probably best for you. Forget the solid copper and O ring thing for you. I deal w/ solid copper gkts on British bikes and other special applications. They can be annealed, if desired.

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

Otto, The GMC V6& V12s I've dismantled had steel shim clad asbestos gkts. Probably cheaper to make. Or they figured the steel could take more combustion heat at thr "fire ring". (The offshore racing blown big block Chevs I build use Stainless Steel fire ring head gkts.) Joe may have already made the ones you need and could be a reasonable cost. Reminds me to ck my stock and reorder. Would you like a Felpro part # to reference? David

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

David, So what your saying is forget about the multi layer and go with the stock style. Both of mine here copper clad with a GMC stamp in them. If you think the Fel# will help, but I have no problem shipping him out a gasket.

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

Otto, I opened a Felpro V12 full gkt set today. The head gkt# 7962-SB was prox .060 thick, steel clad with a thin mat'l sandwiched within. Felpro offered a double thick head gkt (7962-SB-3) to lower compression. Wonder how that would affect intake manifold alignment. Only reason for my responses was I thought Molina could be a lower cost alternative to the prices you posted. David

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

The ones I pulled are between 51 and 53 thick now. I want to raise the compression not lower it. I only had a problem with the 1000$+ for the multilayer gasket, the 240$ wasn't a problem just always thought copper was more suited for high compression race when you are pulling the engine apart all the time. Plus I wasn't keen on doing the ring job to make them seal better around the cylinders. I have no problems with the asbestos clad gasket. The one engine i pulled apart had over 150,000 on it and it was in good condition.

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

I see a lot of thought about high compression racing engines going into this discussion. I propose that there are parallels but not so much because of compression ratio/cylinder pressures. The V-6 motors do not have high compression ratios and high cylinder pressures. When I go with the jet cut soft copper gaskets, especially for the gas motors, I will not be using compression rings. I will be very sure all surfaces are flat and will use ARP studs. I will coat the copper gasket with a light coat of Hylomar and hot re-torque. The solid copper to cast iron interface bleeds away heat very efficiently, that does not happen as efficiently with a sandwich gasket. Copper does not burn so there will be no torching through with them in these low compression motors without fire rings. The shop could not cut it with a laser cutter for that reason. Also you can change compression ratio a bit by how thick the copper is you use for the gaskets. McMaster Carr, an industrial supply house out of Chicago and other locations I buy from has the soft copper for head gaskets in sheets. With all of the problems I see happening here getting gaskets I am now even more convinced I will be doing it. If it does not work, fine, I will fix it another way but I am quite sure I will not have to. I have been in the engine building business, both stock and race, for over 50 years as a one time full time job and now as a sideline to a design engineering job. We have the capability here on the farm in our shop to do everything needed except boring and crank turning. In the 50 year time I have seen a lot of gasket failures so I have a good idea of the mechanics of it along with the curing of it, drawing on that experience to set the pathway for this concept I am going to follow. So, your good wishes for my success with this low cost alternative will be helpful! :)

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

Massey,
Everything you said complies with all the research I did on copper gaskets when I was first told that was my only option unless I wanted to spend 1000+ on a head gasket. Well except the compression ring. Even the Gasket makers say to use one. Well, I Decided to google copper gaskets without o-rings and you are right I found a lot of posts about just using a spray sealant on both sides for street and some performance engines. The only thing that they don't agree on is how many coats and set time before installing. At the moment I'm waiting for my engine builder to get back to me on the thickness of gasket to get my compression between 8-9. I would prefer to take as little off the block and heads as possible to reach that goal. Good luck with your endeavors with a low-cost gasket. If you come up with one before I need it I'll get it from you if your willing to sell me one. My engine builder does a good part of the racing engines around here so he only gets to mine when he is in a lul. Needless to say, it been a year but a lot of that was hunting down parts when we found out what I needed and I'm in no rush since the engine in the truck runs just fine. Its easier to build one of these engines when you don't need one then when you do.

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

I have a GMC 351E engine that will need rebuilding before putting it in a 1964 1500 pickup, and have what is a dumb or at least uninformed question. Are the head gaskets the same for all the GMC 351 V6 engines? I expect that the intake and exhaust manifold gaskets are different because of port sizes, but have not heard or seen anything about the head gaskets. It sounds like it is going to be hard finding gaskets of any sort, so I at least need to be looking for ones that fit.

JRMunn

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

Jrmunn,
Head gaskets are the same for all of the 4.56 (351) bore pistons I think. The intake and exhaust gaskets for the 351E you can get from Cometic. I sent them all the gaskets I could from my engine to remake for the ones I couldn't find easily online. They have the head gaskets in copper so it's not a problem there. After reading the post from Massey unless Molina has them for less than 200 I will probably get them from Cometic. I haven't heard back from Molina when I called them this morning. I'll try them again tomorrow.

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

Let me explain what I meant by the 4.56 bore. All 351 and 702 engins share the same head gasket about 99% posative on that. But im not shore if it is the same as the 379 head gasket.

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

Otto68,

Thank you for such a quick reply. It sounds like I should figure this out now so that at least the gaskets part of putting things back together can be taken care of before taking the engine apart. I have an old Victor gasket kit that says it fits 1960-64 351 (and 401?) V6 engines, which should be good for most of the gaskets, except for intake and exhaust, now that I know more about what fits the heads.

JRMunn

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

I've seen that before too where it calls for the 351 to use the 401 head gasket. As far as the 379 it shares the exact same bore as the 351 so there should be no reason that you couldn't use 379 head gasket on a 351 if you came across them, same goes for using 432 head gaskets on a 401 engine, In fact I have an engine gasket set I bought for a 401M that I may build in the future and the engine gasket set lists it's for both 401 and 432 engines.

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

Sounds like you are in better shape than I am Jrmunn.

The 401 and 432 do use the same as the 351, I wasn't positive about that since they have a bigger bore. That's good to know.

On a side note, I got a call back from Molina and will be shipping them a head gasket in the morning. They said they could do a stock style gasket from around 30,000 thickness and up. They could do a Felpro style gasket too if money was a problem.

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

I had a 351 head gasket that I compared to a 401 and it definitely had a smaller bore opening though it is said you can use 401 head gaskets on the 351. Not to change the subject but I have done several cylinder head conversion on the Jeep 4.2(258 ci) inline six to the 4.0 cylinder head and the proper head gasket to use is the 4.0 which unlike the long stroke 4.2 has a considerably larger bore. So evidently it's ok to use a head gasket meant for a bigger bore engine within certain parameters.

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

That I can understand because of the gasket not being in the chamber opening. It could possibly be better since the edge of the gasket would be further away from the combustion and less likely to burn out. It's almost like putting a 351 head om a 305. you have to use the 351 head gasket because of the larger chamber in the head. The 305 gasket would be inside the chamber not recessed like it should be. I know this because of thats what I'm doing now. I started building the 305 and a 351E fell into my lap. I already had 30 over pistons and the block started. didn't want to throw the money away. You never get out of it what you put into it. Don't know what I'm doing with the block but if I build it the way I'm thinking It's going to cost a lot. Custom 8.2" rod, 1.45 compression height piston, and an offset grind on the crank to bring the bearing down to 2.5 and get a .15 longer stroke.

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

I figured I post some pics of both the 351 and 401 head gaskets for comparison, in the pic with the two gaskets side by side the one on the bottom is an OEM 351 head gasket(with "Victor" stamped on it) and on the top is a 401 gasket. You can see how the 351 gasket has oblong holes in order to make clearance for the valves to go through. The other pic shows the 401 gasket on top of the 351 gasket:thumbsup:

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

So after the gasket getting lost in shipping and Molina Gaskets getting to look at it, I got some prices for the 351 head gasket. For the Felpro style with copper rings, it will be 152 a head or 304 a set. The gasket that is a direct replacement for the original will be 180 a head or 360 a set. So the best price is solid copper form Cometic gaskets at 233 a set.

Re: Head gaskets 351
 

Have you considered contacting http://www.gasketstogo.com/. I know they are overseas, but apparently the guy that runs the place is american. I know a few of my customers have used them in the past for oddball gaskets and had no complaints! It looks as if they can do MLS style gaskets also!

Maybe they can help, maybe they can't! Worth a shot!!!

Mike