OKOKOK,
Glenys and I finally got back to Dearborn last Thursday night, and I just
finished clean up of the trailer and truck, and have lots of stuff to do to
the chassis before putting away for the winter. Brand new car finally on
the salt went thru tech with no problems and made 5 passes between 150 and
160. Problems with Jerico air shifting into 3rd, and a lack of power that I
knew about before leaving, but for a shakedown meet it was enough to do the
job. 158 MPH with less than 160 HP at the rear wheels. When the motor gets
healthy this is gonna be one fine ride. Really comfortable, smooth, and
nicely responsive. WF was a great meet. We enjoyed ourselves a lot and
will be really ready for Speedweek 05
Chris, to answer your sealing questions, I need some more information. How
close to the edge of the bore is the "O" ring groove? The MLS gasket you
are considering has an embossment just adjacent to the bore for sealing
load, and if your groove is outboard of that, filling the groove with alum
devcon is probably going to be OK. once away from the sealing load, the
rubber coating and whatever embossments they have around water passages take
care of the remainder of sealing. I have used Devcon to repair rather large
imperfections on iron heads when not in the area of the chamber. Once we
are into an area that is adjacent to the water jacket, temps are much lower,
and once assembled the material is encapsulated so would present a problem.
Elons idea of an aluminum wire is also viable. It all depends on where the
groove is.
If you use a MLS gasket, be aware that the surface finish and flatness are
critical, as well as what is called waviness, rather small undulations that
are not caught with rms or Ra measurements. You will have to do a skin cut
of the head, that you already said you didn't want to do. There are machine
shops that can do an adequate job. If they can reproduce the Ford 4.6L
specification it will work.
I have a music wire groove in my iron block that will be repaired the same
way (with devcon) if I switch to the Cometic gasket. I haven't had problems
with the conventional Fel Pro wire ring gasket yet, so won't fix whats not
broken.
Cometic can and will make gaskets with a thicker core, (up to .090")so if
you have to take a cut, they can accommodate correcting your valve/piston
issues. There though is little data on thick core embossments and sealing
load. I would ask for specific data relative to sealing load, and how it is
affected by increase in thickness.
Give me more specific measurements and I'll try to help.....
Rick
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