Thread: O Ringing the Block

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Hopefully I can get some input from experience. I am buliding a streetable blown 454. I am planning on running a 671 blower. I think this should push Grandma's 52 chevy down the road. I have been told that if I run a blower with about 8 lb of boost I need to O ring the block. Any input?

Thanks

Originally posted by b2zone
Hopefully I can get some input from experience. I am buliding a streetable blown 454. I am planning on running a 671 blower. I think this should push Grandma's 52 chevy down the road. I have been told that if I run a blower with about 8 lb of boost I need to O ring the block. Any input?

Thanks

8 lb. boost on the st. no. if things ant right you gonna blow it up anyhow, and if things are right you dont need it for the st.

You shouldn't need to ring the block, if it's going to be a mostly street driven car. Just make sure the block deck and head surfaces are straight and use a good Head gasket with a stainless fire ring.

In my opinion you're going to be right at the boost limit without the "O"rings. If you going to be happy at 7-8 lbs make sure everything is square and use a quality head gasket. If you might increase the boost in the near future then "O" ring it now to save a complete rebuild when you machine the receiver grooves.

Regards, Mark

Most up to date motor shops dont O ring blocks anymore, there is a gasket that they use now that most good shops will know about that makes O ringing a thing of the past. Even the Turbo cars in the fastest street car style shootouts that are running super high boost are using these gaskets without problems.
The shop that is building my blown 540 is using the gaskets as well on my motor.

I know the name of the gasket but have no idea how its spelledso i'm not even gonna butcher it by tryin to spell it

BG

Steel shim gaskets, they're so good they're almost reusable. I wouldn't reuse a gasket as important as a head gasket. Get some good studs to go with your good gaskets.

The ones i was talking about i think are called cometic. not sure of the spelling but its something like that.

Is that MLS (Multi Layer Steel)? I've seen them in a few Mags.

You definatly don't need to o-ring your heads. My experiences with the cars I build to run the streets, is I run a standard head gasket with forced induction. Kinda works as a fuse. The head gasket will go before anything else. I'm currently running 12psi on my 289 in my lark and am just using a "napa special" headgasket. I've ran 20psi on stock type headgaskets before. Wouldn't recomend though lol. A lot of my customers don't like to go that route and want the best of the best, so when they do we run cometics. One of the motors we just finished is running 30psi, yes 30psi. And is using a cometic headgasket. Great headgaskets. Hmmm...... I should be a spokesperson for them lol.

Wow great place for information! Thanks Guys!