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Headgasket issue on fresh engine


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Ordered an Athena HG. Received a JE Tuning? i think its called to go into this forged build.

Head was skimmed and fully rebuilt, Block was bored, honed to piston tolerance and decked flat.

Everything was assembled, Primed, and started. all perfect.

Usual leak checks, etc, everything was spot on for once. not a single thing wrong.

It was taken for a drive up the road to check everything as a c56 ae111 lsd diff and gearset was used and rebuilt so it was taken through all the gears at low load/rpm basically no boost. Its currently running standard turbo setup + ecu.

The car was parked up, left to idle for a few minutes and turned off. again. everything was spot on.

In total the engine had been running for approx 4 hours.

The bay was given a general tidy up wiring wise and cleaned down. Then it was started to move it outside and the engine was misfiring. Quick compression check showed ZERO on 2 and 3.

Head removed to reveal this.

13933042_10209976399753965_26206365_n_zp

This is the engine being assembled:

13932054_10209976454755340_1707360440_o_

13950897_10209976454875343_935478425_o_z

13951075_10209976478435932_1352870324_o_

As we ordered more stock from the same company we had more of the JE tuning gaskets. In the meantime we had ordered some Athena gaskets elsewhere and received actual Athena branded gaskets. So after finding this we took a pic to compare the two:

13918385_10209952339352470_998064534_o_z

Could the gasket have been faulty?

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i can only think of 2 things here now not tight enough and faulty gasket



convert that block to studs richard i know its a bit of work but works out in the end as you would be able to clamp it down more



also i ues grease on metal gaskets to make extra bond ( old school trik )


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If you ordered an Athena gasket and they sent a non Athena Gasket, why would you fit it?



Surely you would contact the supplier and demand the known reputable branded gasket?



I'm guessing the gasket is complete shit and that's what went wrong, even the packaging looks cheap and nasty.


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The packaging is exactly the same, only the branding differs. The gaskets also look like they are pressed on the same machine but the athena gasket has a coating on it and has different layers.

It was used because of the company that we bought it from. Apparently that is what they use on their own cars and customer cars. Even though its sold as a 1.2mm Athena head gasket online.

Anyway, the engine was running again 2 hours after the photo was taken after surfaces where checked and the proper athena gasket was used this time. Everything is perfect now.

I have made the company aware of what happened and they havent made any attempt to offer even a fractional refund for the faulty gasket. Just advised for us to check that the surfaces are flat.. Well that would be great if that was the problem.

We will however be returning the stock we have.

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Yeah well im guessing you where sent a JE from the same company as we where. Our block was decked already and it still failed. All thats been done since is check surfaces and use a proper athena gasket. Car has been running all day with no issue. I think the gasket was the problem here.


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This isnt good, especially when they are being sold as Athena gaskets and at about £100 a pop.. We bought 3 of them but luckily we had another order from idworkz which turned out to be proper athena gaskets.

Im guessing there are more people out there with the same issue.

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Be interested to know how you get on with the Athena, be sure to keep us updated. My other thought was to try and source a cometic gasket, but if the Athena gasket proves to work well I'll just order one from IDWorkz.

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Well the Athena gasket has already out lived the JE gasket and has seen a bit of boost too. So far so good!

Yup same failure just on different cylinders. I was originally thinking we got one from a bad batch maybe or that it was a one off.. but this is an eye opener

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The packaging is exactly the same, only the branding differs. The gaskets also look like they are pressed on the same machine but the athena gasket has a coating on it and has different layers.

It was used because of the company that we bought it from. Apparently that is what they use on their own cars and customer cars. Even though its sold as a 1.2mm Athena head gasket online.

Anyway, the engine was running again 2 hours after the photo was taken after surfaces where checked and the proper athena gasket was used this time. Everything is perfect now.

I have made the company aware of what happened and they havent made any attempt to offer even a fractional refund for the faulty gasket. Just advised for us to check that the surfaces are flat.. Well that would be great if that was the problem.

We will however be returning the stock we have.

Thats what Im saying though straight away the branding looks cheap and nasty its generic it looks like a knock off.

As for the gasket itself what do you mean different layers? As the box for that JE gasket says MLS gasket so if it doesnt have different layers then not only is it a knock off but its a falsely advertised knock off.

Personally mate I feel for you because youve paid for a quality product and received complete and utter garbage and the only people benefiting are the crooks that sent you that cheap tat for the price of an Athena gasket because you can be sure they aren't paying the same for them, hence why they use them and are palming them off to customers.

Anyway Im sure if you have an invoice or receipt of payment for 3 Athena gaskets then you will get your money back since they basically took it upon themselves to send you something of inferior quality to what you ordered and paid for. All I can say is I dont think you should have fitted it in the first place as its not what you ordered but hopefully you still get refunded mate.

Whoever the company is you should name them so people can avoid buying gaskets from them, either way its been proven ID Workz is cheaper and clearly has more integrity since they actually send you what you order not what suits them and makes them better profit margins.

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Not sure about anyone else, but when I ordered mine it was made very clear what I'd be receiving.

My JE gasket is/was a genuine JE item, the argument isn't whether or not they are real, it's whether or not they are up to the task, and so far a few of us have had problems. There is likely a good number of others who have had no issue with the gaskets, perhaps they are tight on tolerances? The engineering firm who did the work on my engine the second time around commented that the skim I'd had on my head previously left quite a coarse finish, and that could have caused problems as well.

All I know is I'm reluctant to buy another JE gasket, and MLS gaskets all together. It's not a cheap gig, or a quick job having engineering work carried on an engine, so I want to be certain it'll be right when I put it back together.

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