Hi people.
 
Had the head off my sapph cosworth the other day and found the block has been o-ringed.
It has a copper wire in it, and has been running grpA/std head gaskets. There were no problens with sealing of the cylinders, head was pulled for a coolant leak.
Has anyone seen or done this before? My only experience with o-rings is on blown alloy hemi headed big blocks that run a stinless ring and copper head gaskts!
Also, does any one have pics of a std intake port. Looks like my head has recieved a port job too.
 
Thanks
Brett

Wire Rings these days equal headaches. You are very limited to which gasket you can use...I think the original YB0611 GrpA gasket will be no good due to the stainless ring inside the fire ring area of the gasket. It prevents the headgasket from sealing properly(coolant) as the wire rings press against this instead of sinking into the gasket as they are intended and therefore hold the head off the block while sealing the cylinders. While researching this recently I was told by a few people in the UK that with wire rings you need to use a YB1261...although I havent seen one of these gaskets stripped to know if it has the same rings in the gasket as the YB0611. In the end, we left the orings out and found a cometic gasket would still seal as the oring groove was between ridges on the gasket. A Reinz WRC gasket would not work as one of the sealing ridges was right on the oring groove. I spent months trying to find this stuff out with no one having definative answers...this method has now been tried and tested in an engine which has now been running reliably for nearly 12 months. The only variable will be the radius of the o ring groove, as to which steel gasket can be used.

Thanks for the info. I will keep looking into it. The copper rings would barely be above deck height if at all. They may have been flatend down at some stage?
I will try post up some pics tonight if I get time.
 
Cheers
Brett

Hi Brett,
 
If they are copper, they defeat the purpose of being there, they are usually made from .040" piano wire. The protrusion is set at around .010" from memory.
 
Cheers,
 
Phil.

Copper works fine, but you really should replace it every time the head comes off.

Ive used this combo with rines (reines?) gaskets before, and it seems to be okay.

My current build has a cometic MLS, and from what I have seen with the jap stuff, this gasket is going to do a much better job than the old fibre gaskets - of course, can't use o-ring with an MLS.

Here is a pic of my intake port. It looks like its had some work. What do ya think?

 

It does look like it has been opened up a bit.