steel shim head gaskets.........

[Nick Campagna]

Do the GM steel shim gaskets have a fire ring ??

[dwilliams]

No, just an embossed ring around the bore. Not a separately-crimped-into-place fire ring like a composition gasket.

There are embossed ridges around all the water passages as well. The gasket material is springy, and the ridges spring-load themselves against the mating surface.

BTW, the GM factory steel shim gaskets won't work with the "light weight" heads, nor with some of the aftermarket heads. The water passages/core holes moved around past the edges of the embossed areas on the gasket.

[ap72]

Will the gasket mentioned from CV products work with those heads?

[BrazilianZ28Camaro]

You can use a fine straight cut triangle file and very gently go from head-bolt hole to head-bolt hole and feel her clean up and become smooth/flat, BUT this is an old "feelie" deal by me!! Works fine once you get the feel down and watch the decks change from rust/cruddy to shiny metal oh so gently.

pdq67

I did that too in my old 67' 283 decks, but used a " rectangular orange stone" (Excuses for lack of a better term. )instead of file.

After , I used a square section of High speed steel (HSS) bit to check the flatness. No leaks so far!

[cpmotors]

Can I get the part number for those gm shims for 8 bucks? What's the thickness on those?

Fel-Pro #1094 = 4.100" x .015" 3.2cc rubber coated embossed steel

[Small block guy]

retorque...... retorque..... retorque. pain in the ass, but..... go hard or go home.

[RCJ]

Used them years ago on oval track motors.The trouble I had was after 10 races or so they would leak a small amount of pressure in to the water jacket on the power stroke.This would force a little water out, by the end of the race the car would be hot.100 psi on a leakdown tester would not show this leak.I found it by seeing carbon tracking on the gasket.
If you type fast it doesn't seem like a big problem but when your 20 years old,middle of august and don't have much money its a big deal.

[BrazilianZ28Camaro]

retorque...... retorque..... retorque. pain in the ass, but..... go hard or go home.

A couple months ago I started a post about the need of retorque shim heads gaskets...my doubt appeared because the steel have a very small compressibility ,maybe none considerable, compared to a conventional gasket. This is the answer BIGJOE reply:

Steel shim head gaskets DO NOT need to be retorqued-- The steel shim material does not compress, That is wht the GM factory used them for ever.

JOE SHERMAN RACING ENGINES