I was on honda-tech reading about this but I'm still not fully understanding what needs to be done. My buddy blew his head gasket and we now have a copper one that we want to replace it with. What exactly do we need to do, mill the head? Get new head studs? O-ring the head? Any help would be great.

 

mill the head. clean the gasket off the block fully. i dont know if you have to use the copper spray or not.

 

you dont have too..if the head is not warped you don't have to mill it.just get a ruler and go across the head both ways to check if its warped.

 

how about the copper head gasket? Everyone on honda-tech is saying that you need to get the head o-ringed because the copper doesn't make a tight enough seal. Also, how about my head studs?

 

Yup need to get the head o-ringed.
But a friend of mine has come up with an idea that needs to be tested on his car first....no o-ring!??
And use the copper spray it is worth it.
Here they use copper spray only and no head gasket on motorcycle heads for race only to up the copression.

 

Correct, you cannot just slap a copper gasket on a stock head/block. It needs to be stepped, or O-ringed, otherwise it will NOT Seal. You can have the oring placed on the head, or around the sleeve itself, but its a bit tricky to cut a groove on the sleeve. The o-rings will have to be hand made, and filed perfectly.

For best sealing, you can make 2 grooves one head and once block, one will be a reciever grove.

I also recommend using copper Spray on the headgasket itself when doing this.

Jeff

 

I like copper spray. very sticky

 

so would there be any advantage to just going back to a stock head gasket? i mean, the other option he wanted to consider is put a stock head gasket in and only run around 5-7 psi instead of 12. Is this possible and if so, would I still need to have the head milled or replace the head studs?

 

Resurfacing the head only really needs to be done when the engine gets overheated, (basically it warps) Its up to you if you want it to get resurfaced (milled)

Advantage for a stock gasket?.. Well they do work pretty good, especially the tripple layer metal ones. Some people like cometic gaskets, but I have never tried them.

Jeff