Summary

How do you know when you need to use a thicker head gasket versus standard? OK well what this comes down to I guess if first of all understanding why you may need a thicker head gasket in the first place. So there are a variety of reasons here.

00:00 - Mike's asked, how do you know when you need to use a thicker head gasket versus standard? OK well what this comes down to I guess if first of all understanding why you may need a thicker head gasket in the first place.
00:13 So there are a variety of reasons here.
00:16 A lot of people will use a head gasket to adjust the compression ratio.
00:21 And that is a valid aspect that we would need to consider.
00:24 Although it's gonna be difficult to make dramatic changes in our compression ratio using the head gasket alone.
00:31 Probably the key aspect we need to keep an eye on though and understand is the clearance between the top of the piston crown at TDC or top dead centre, and the underside of the cylinder head.
00:42 Now if that clearance is insufficient, we can end up with the piston rocking over at high RPM as it moves past TDC and actually contacting the cylinder head, obviously something that we don't want to occur.
00:55 So that's the first place we're going to be looking, we're gonna be making sure that our piston to cylinder head clearance is sufficient, if it isn't sufficient this may call for a thicker head gasket.
01:05 Beyond that, it would be the aspect of our compression ratio that we would be trying to get right.
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