Thursday7
12-14-2016, 08:47 AM
Recently did a mild refresh on a second hand KA after blowing mine up. I learned it was an S14 KA, but bought all my gaskets and such for a DOHC S13 KA, as that's what I'm used to doing. (this is happening on Rockauto) I learned the hard way, the difference between valve cover gaskets, but that solved itself easily as my parts store had an S14 one somehow.
Now onto the head gaskets. While they are practically almost the same, I did notice that the front-most, exhaust side head bolt hole had a crush washer around the hole. The S13 gasket did not have a hole big enough to accommodate the washer, and I wasn't about to throw it in there and have an imperfect sealing surface. At the time, I was trying to get the motor back together for an event upcoming, so I just used this gasket and went for it. I thought to myself, "how bad will a gasket be at sealing this". *While we're on this note, would it have been safe to drill out my headgasket, or is going new the only way?*
Anyway, with the S13 HG, the car has been running fine, and I even ran an event with it, a rather long one at that. Haven't noticed any blue smoke or anything, although I probably should have checked the oil level before writing this.
Is this a problem I should be concerned about? It isn't showing any signs of failure, however I do plan on boosting this KA rather soon and I don't want things to go wrong (or should I say, I'd like them to go less wrong)
Not sure if it matters, but I did spray a healthy coating of copper gasket spray, especially around these oil holes, when installing this gasket.
Here are pics for comparison, from FP.
S14:
http://www.rockauto.com/info/6/FELPF_26171PT_P04_TOP.jpg
S13:
http://www.rockauto.com/info/6/FELPF_9820PT_P04_TOP.jpg
Now onto the head gaskets. While they are practically almost the same, I did notice that the front-most, exhaust side head bolt hole had a crush washer around the hole. The S13 gasket did not have a hole big enough to accommodate the washer, and I wasn't about to throw it in there and have an imperfect sealing surface. At the time, I was trying to get the motor back together for an event upcoming, so I just used this gasket and went for it. I thought to myself, "how bad will a gasket be at sealing this". *While we're on this note, would it have been safe to drill out my headgasket, or is going new the only way?*
Anyway, with the S13 HG, the car has been running fine, and I even ran an event with it, a rather long one at that. Haven't noticed any blue smoke or anything, although I probably should have checked the oil level before writing this.
Is this a problem I should be concerned about? It isn't showing any signs of failure, however I do plan on boosting this KA rather soon and I don't want things to go wrong (or should I say, I'd like them to go less wrong)
Not sure if it matters, but I did spray a healthy coating of copper gasket spray, especially around these oil holes, when installing this gasket.
Here are pics for comparison, from FP.
S14:
http://www.rockauto.com/info/6/FELPF_26171PT_P04_TOP.jpg
S13:
http://www.rockauto.com/info/6/FELPF_9820PT_P04_TOP.jpg