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Valve cover gasket thickness

Domscustom

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2022
Total Posts
151
Total likes
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Location
Patchogue, NY, USA
Got an engine gasket kit and it has two different thickness gaskets for intake and exhaust side valve covers one is tan and thin the other is thick gray which one should I use and why? Thanks


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Make sure they match the valve covers, as the intake and exhaust sides are different shapes; that may make your choice easy. Unless you mean you have four gaskets, thin and thick for both intake and exhaust sides. If that's the case, perhaps they included thick gaskets to make up for any warping in the aluminum.
 
The intake side would use 2 gaskets because of the blow-by baffle plate, but they're typically different in appearance.

450 top end gaskets.jpg
 
And, that second gasket doesn't show up on either of my parts diagrams.

It's weird, isn't it? We know the baffle plate exists and it shows in the fiche, but yet it shows only one gasket for the intake cover. Yet another oversight I guess. Have you ever put one together without the baffle plate, or seen one without it? I haven't in either case.
 
Since there's a clear function to that baffle plate, no, I've never left one out.
Another thing, I have a parts book for the K0, and it doesn't list both, only gasket B. At least they added gasket A to the K3-K5 book.
 
Breather gasket

So I know where the perimeter gasket goes on the head side of separator plate then a mostly solid gasket goes on the cover side, but the new gasket has a different punch out, should I cut holes to match? Thanks

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Merged both of your valve cover gasket threads together.

Is that the set you got from Common Motor? I've never seen any quite like that. Yeah, you don't want to cover the holes in the baffle plate, but if you had a second cover gasket like the perimeter-only gasket in the 3rd pic you could simply use it with the plate sandwiched between the two, or cut out the holes in the proper place. I've seen a few different plates over the years so they must have copied one of the lesser-used plates for the gasket they supplied like the picture I posted earlier. I'll check to see which version plate I have since I'm curious now
 
Both of my spare valve cover baffle plates look like yours. From the parts fiches, it looks like the change from the plate that uses the gasket you got from CMC to the later plate that you and I both have happened between the K2 and K3 models. So CMC had the gaskets made by copying an older version of that plate at least...
 
Yeah, that's pretty thick and really not necessary. And sometimes that can be the difference in the stock cover bolt length being a bit short with only 4 or 5 threads in the head to use, then someone overtightens them and loses those threads.
 
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