Cometic Gaskets!

[Smithers]

Ok I have had some frustrations with my 1UZ-FE but I can't exactly blame the Cometic gaskets YET. In order to clamp them down I had to utilize ARP head studs because the stock headbolts were fatigued to the point that the stretch wouldn't clamp the Cometic gaskets properly.

So in went some more money in the form of ARP hardware. Now you may know that the intake cam gear in the center of both heads comes very close to the top of the studs. If you put the regular length ARP stud into the block then it WILL conflict with the cam gear and if you're dumb enough to torque down the cams and put your engine back together from that point then you're in for a surprise when you go to start your engine. SO I was given a non-standard shorter ARP stud to use in place. This is a generic length stud that wasn't designed for this application... and there isn't a stud build for this engine - they are just put together from their existing parts list to make a 1UZ kit. So anyhow the stud was too short which resulted in only about 3/4" of the threads to make contact with the aluminum block. Then the other week my truck started running crappy after a few hundred miles of driving around. I check the spark plug wires and injectors... everything was fine. So then I pulled the plugs and had a couple of wet ones on either side of the passenger side center head bolts. I was cursing the Cometic Gaskets for letting some water seep by but upon disassembly I found that the short ARP stud had pulled out of the block. Great!!

This thread starts the journey into my experience using Cometic solid head gaskets on my 1UZ-FE!