Salt Lake’s top head Gasket Repair Shop

Detonation (spark knock) is a common cause of head gasket failure. When detonation occurs, it causes large pressure spikes within the combustion chamber. Repeated over time, these pressure spikes will overwhelm and break through the gasket armor around the cylinder, resulting in burn through and loss of compression. There are a variety of causes of detonation, but the most common is a buildup of carbon on the walls of the combustion chamber, which raises compression. Most modern engines run at relatively high compression ratios, and many require high octane fuel. If the compression is raised to the point where the fuel will spontaneously combust without the spark being present to ignite it, the engine will sound like it is knocking or pinging when under load.

On bi-metallic engines there is a severe sealing problem between the aluminum cylinder heads and cast-iron cylinder blocks. These two metals expand at different rates through the warm-up cycle, with the aluminum cylinder head expanding more rapidly than the cast-iron cylinder block. The aluminum cylinder head also warms at a much more rapid rate, adding even more differentials in expansion. This difference in expansion creates a “scrubbing” action that, over time, destroys the stainless steel “fire ring” that stops combustion gases from entering into the cooling system. In turn, the sum of the heat events causes the cylinder head gasket to fail. For this reason, many aftermarket gasket manufacturers have developed head gaskets made with space-age materials that are more resistant to scuffing in bi-metallic applications.