Well my cars burning more coolant than gas right now and I figure that it's the head gasket so I've been looking at decompression gaskets. It started with a little extra smoke, then more, then more, now it engulfs other cars at red lights.... lol. I have to get it fixed or else I'm going to have many enemies in the tri-state area.

So far I've found:
http://www.kdmstuff.com/shop/step1.php?number=689 - if this one is a hyundai part why is it so expensive vs. <100 for a stocker? (3mm thinkness new)
http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.a...mp;autoview=sku - this one is talked about here http://www.rdtiburon.com/index.php?showtop...gasket&st=0 (2.3622 mm compressed)

Stock - http://www.importshark.com/ProductImages/E...eadgaskets.html apparently stock is 0.762 mm or .03 in - (quoting tibby01 here)

I'm kinda leaning towards the second one since it is so much cheaper (bearly more than a stock one) and for the price of the 1st I could pickup a set of 1.8L pistons and rods from sfr and drop cr to 7.7:1. It won't drop the cr as low at the 1st but then I'm not really planning on much more boost, just that I might as well swap it while I'm in there. (plus I just dropped a little under a grand on the car with clutch, flywheel (that broke), hydraulic lines, clutch hydraulic system (including two slave cyclinders.. stupid autozone crap)

btw, please don't turn this into a decompression piston vs plate thread.

 

if your allready changing it then i say go for it, drop the compression and see where it gets ya.

 

Are you sure it's not the turbo that causes the smoke? The smoke can be cause by bad turbo seals

Also to verify that if it is the headgasket, see if you oil is mixing with the coolant or vice versa

 

from what I can tell there is no oil to coolant mixing going on. I need to check in the radiator again though. I looked last night but it was hard to tell.

the oil is definently fine since it was the first thing I checked when I realized what was happening. It's definently coolant, the tank was dry. I've only driven a few miles and the level is already dropping again.

jay
I initially thought turbo seals. But the smoke is really white and doesn't smell like burning oil. Plus it doesn't relate at all to boosting not to mention oil levels fine and coolant is magically disappearing!

I realized after posting earlier why I just noticed this. This winters been really mild so far and just the last few days has it dropped to sub freezing during the day. The cold is making the steam more noticable. I'd noticed it was smoking more at night in the previous weeks but I just thought it was idling rich due to the colder evening air.

So does anyone have any experience with those gaskets? I just double checked, that sce definently has to be decomp. check out the stock replacement.
http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.a...mp;autoview=sku - (.032 again)
Holy crap! shipping march 7th!

I bet that sce one decompresses just as much as the one from sfr. That 3mm measurement is before getting smashed, 2.3mm is after the other ones been installed.

 

white smoke does not mean you have a blown head gasket.. bubbling coolant, missing coolant, oily coolant, and finally sweet white smoke means you're burning coolant. White smoke alone can mean your engine is running better then most in the winter. But if the smoke isn't sweet and just smells like fuel, then it's not coolant.

 

... dtn, please read the first sentence of my first post. This won't be my first head gasket.

 

I've seen a few horror stories with copper gaskets...
to seal properly they need to be coated with sealant and i would think of boosting without adding o'rings to the head or block
thicker oem type headgasket seams to be the best option if you want to lower the compression without doing pistons ( i do prefer pistons)
stock one holds up pretty well, with cold wheather i'm boosting about 17 psi quite often.. no problems yet

if you're eating head gasket then something is wrong, wraped head, wrtaped block deck,bad bolts, bad bolt torquing

 

^^I overheated a couple times this past summer so I figure thats what did it.

Really my setup wasn't intended to go over 10-12 psi.. Denis I think you told me that the street disc from act will hold about 12 psi.

...hum, maybe I should just stick with the stock cr and keep it at 10 psi. It goes really nicely now.

 

^^^wise move.

its better to have a quick car thats fun to drive everyday then having a fast ass car that you cant drive because your allways working on it

 

true true, maybe a few years down the road I'll get some pistons in there and crank it up then. cool.gif