Thread: Cometic head gasket defects ??

Hey did a quick search to see if anyone has had problems with a cometic gasket before.


heres the story engine is an sr20det in an AE86. had spark issues broke a piston had to open it up and replace pistons and rings. while i was at it thuoght it would be a good idea to put in a metal gasket. economic choice was cometic so i went with one of those all std but immediately after the engine was built we noticed that it would blow water through the reserve tank and even more on boost leak test showed cylinder 1 and 4 had problems i used it for short distances for a couple weeks then took it to the mechanic when we took the head off the gasket was messed up the rings on the gasket seem like they were getting hit by the piston and it was ruined. (by the way i never ran more than 11psi)

the surface of the block is fne and so is the head right now except for the part of the gasket that got messed up touched the head. so my theory that the head or block being messed up and the gasket being ruined due to that is ruled out i guess and also the fact that the problem was there immediately.

has anyone had experience like this or heard with cometic gaskets? i am using an oem one now but the reason i want to know is to see if i should send it back to the seller to try get a refund.


Karna M

Did you get the right bore size? If im gathering this correct it seems the pistons were hitting the gasket itself?

yeah the pistons were std and the gasket was std bore too. and yes you are right thats pretty much what happèned. and i dont understand why. mechanic says he measured the gasket and it was the right size

Maybe it was installed wrong and shifted over a little bit into the cylinder and that's what happened.

I thought of that as a possibility but i thought that would be something not very likely since... i mean the mechanic has had a lot of experience wiht sr20 and it hasn happened before. but when the gasket is put in place i would imagine it has the guides and it should sit perfectly in place... lets see what happens with the oem gasket now...

vvl gasket is good but i dont see why it would do that to be honest. It had to of been installed wrong or possibly you got the wrong size.

I will have fun when my cometic goes. I hear of some people on here having serious issues with them, and the arp head bolts. I am using both with good luck so far. When she goes, it should be interesting to see lol. I know of a few High HP guys using cometic gaskets with no issues, but know of a couple that have had some.

I guess when they are good, they are good. But when they are bad they will cost you a lot of $$$$$$$$.

When I installed my cometic it was sliding around abit when putting the head on took me a few trys to get it lined up perfect.

this seems like the most plausible theory. thats what i wanted to know basically. i thought those things were desgined so that you put them down and all should line up perfectly and it CANT move . i get the feeling that this is what happened and there goes the warranty and no mechanic will accept blame for that. thank god i have no major damage at least.

I took pics in my build thread for my car and the fitment for the cometic isn't even close to as nice as the stock one. The dowels that hold it in place won't fit as nicely on the cometic because they made the holes just a lil too big.