copper head gasket

[88SMILEY]

I bought a copper head gasket, not realizing that it needed to be annealed. Has anyone used a copper head gasket and is it worth the trouble of preparing it?

[Rodneya]

I have used copper head gaskets on high performance car engines, and they were straight installs with no annealing or anything. And they worked great to seal the heads.

I did not know that they made copper gaskets for a banshee, but with a stock head you should have no issues.

What do they want you to do to anneal it just heat it up until almost red and then let it cool.

If you do that, try not to use a oxy acetylene torch as they can give too much heat, and clean it up after with a scotch brite pad. It is just a 15 min process to heat it up and let it cool to soften the copper.

[88SMILEY]

They say to use a rosebud on a torch to heat it in a figure 8. It will turn blue, then green, then orange. Then drop it flat into a bucket of water. Scratch pad it, then coat it with copper coat, wait ten minutes, assemble and torque it. Wait 24 hrs warm up the engine, let it cool, and then re-torque.