Head gasket installation question...

[nmcgrawj]

Are you supposed to leave the gaskets as is? I remember on my Ford Racing gasket kit the head gaskets covered up one of the water jackets. The stock head gasket was the same way.

Would it help cooling to cut a hole in the spot where the water jacket is? Or would that weaken the head gasket?

What do you guys do?

 

[RIO5.0]

I guess you could open it some and see what happens??? I have always just left em alone....that hole size may have a relationship to the "push or pressure" of the cooling system???

 

[95CobraMike]

i leave mine as is.....but then again i am having problems so who knows

 

[95_5.0_stang]

In addition to my stang, I have an old 85' bronco, and I just bought some headgaskets for it, I had this same question. The bronco was overheating like heck, we checked what else it could be. Well the gaskets aren't cut out for the water jacket in the block but for only one cylinder on both banks (v6) I was thinking I might need to cut out the holes for the other 2 cylinders on each side. So in other words, thanks for making this thread, haha. Hopefully it will reflect to what I may need to do too.

 

[nmcgrawj]

haha, yea it seems there is no "real" answer as to why it is the way it is.

The only guy i know of that i have seen who said he cut them out is David(5spdGT), maybe he will chime in soon....

 

[95_5.0_stang]

haha, yea it seems there is no "real" answer as to why it is the way it is.

The only guy i know of that i have seen who said he cut them out is David(5spdGT), maybe he will chime in soon....

Yea, hopefully. Just noticed you lived in Michigan, I'm down by Lansing...I just passed through Ann Arbor a couple days ago.

 

[BlueOvalStangGT]

I left mine as is and my car runs plenty cool. Im gonna go pull off my head again right now so ill be subscribing.

 

[Jack's95gt]

Leave them holes covered up. The purpose of them being covered up is to have the proper coolant flow, from back to front. If you open them up, it will over heat. The reason they're there is because the cylinder heads can be used on either side of the block. Both of your cylinder heads are identical.

 

[nmcgrawj]

Leave them holes covered up. The purpose of them being covered up is to have the proper coolant flow, from back to front. If you open them up, it will over heat. The reason they're there is because the cylinder heads can be used on either side of the block. Both of your cylinder heads are identical.

So back in the old days did they use them? because the block as the holes if i recall correctly.

 

[HuebyStang94]

Just had the same question in my mind, I put my head gaskets on as is. NO tampering with hole size. Car runs at 180-190 all day long. NO problems.