is a copper head gasket a bad idea some people have told me they leak alot im plaining on using a .80, any thoughts. thanks

 

Use the SCE titan copper gasket it is a self sealing gasket and does not leak

 

A few people I know have used copper head gaskets with bad results, if you use them make sure your heads and block are machined perfectly, and see if the brand you are getting recommend useing copper gasket to heal seal up the inperfections

 

I haveO & copper NO issues for three years.. Its the O ring machining etc that makes or breaks them...

 

I used plain copper head gaskets in my street sbc 350 for 30,000 miles with no problem. That motor saw plenty of detonation and overheating. It would seep a TINY bit but it was nice to be able to reuse gaskets. It would only seep enough to get a little dirty at the seam between head and block. Actual coolant loss was less than half a cup per 10,000 miles (about 1 year of driving). I just had a stock 350 block (not decked at all) and vortec heads that had also not been surfaced. And no O rings or grooves cut for the gaskets. I just used a very thin coating of black rtv on both sides of the gasket when I'd put them in. The motor was painted ford blue and when I sold the car to my friend he wanted it painted black. It was also smoking a tiny bit out the exhaust at times. So I tore it down and put in regular street head gaskets. Turns out the smoke was a little oil getting sucked by the intake gasket... oh well, removed the heads when I didn't have to. I personally like copper head gaskets and will be using .093" thick ones on my big block turbo project. Yes, using thick gaskets will kill the quench and isn't a good idea to just go from say 10.5:1 down to 10:1 if you had good quench at 10.5:1. Still, a quench pad is nice as you will still get tumble as the piston comes to TDC which makes it better than an open combustion chamber and I think it's worth losing the quench in a boosted engine if you can drop a full point or more by going to a thick gasket.