Changing Head Gasket
 

I need to chang emy head gasket and want to know what is a good head gaskt to get that will give me alittle bit more compression. What is a typical price for a head gasket job at a shop?

cosmetic makes headgaskets to lower compression im sure they have one that raises it. Check Ebay. A shop would probally charge you over $500.00 for the job

It's not the gasket that will raise your compression. In order to do that, you must deck the head and/or block. Chenging a head gasket is usually an hour and a half longer than a timing belt job. At a shop? About $800 including parts. Sounds silly, but the whole timing belt job must be done in order to do this. Reusing parts is strongly ill-advised, but that's your call.

What do you mean mby decking the head or block?

You take the parts to a machine shop that bolts them level to a mill, and they shave off .0xx" which decreases the volume of the combustion chamber to raise the compression. It also brings the valves closer to the pistons which there's very little room for. I wouldn't dare take more than .018" off. You're better off replacing your pistons and doing it the right way because changing the deck height of the head also changes your engine's geometry.

I'm not a mechanic so...

It's my understanding that any time you take the head off (especially if the head gasket is bad, causing a overheating situation), that you need to have the head checked out for flatness and have it milled flat. It'll be miniscule, but just that will get you to the .018 that Jafro was talking about I would guess. Are you supposed to replace the head bolts too? Have the head checked for cracks too?

Correct. If the head isn't trashed already, the .018" is just about enough to make it flat, and could yeild a x.1:1 -x.2:1 difference in your final compression ratio which you won't really feel. There isn't a lot of room to cut or you'll cut into the valve seats (and then it really would be worthless).

Always check the head for hot spots and cracks when you remove it. Napa has machine shops all over the place. You can usually just drop it with them and they'll rebuild it for you. They will usually rebuild a sohc cylinder head for about $125-$175. It will come back looking like new. Don't disassemble it past scraping off the vale cover gasket goop, pulling the plugs and removing the sensors if you go that route.

Head bolts are NOT re-useable. They stretch. They'll snap off in your block if you do re-use them.

As for a head gasket. I would use Mr. Gasket

Is that made by Mr. Coffee?

I'd stick with OEM personally.

:lmfao:

I second this, its OEM for me w/ ARP headstuds.