copper headgaskets

[Barry Donovan]

I want to swap out some headgaskets on a 9 to 1 boxer (ea82) non interference engine. It irigunally came with a crazy supercharge, and it is long time removed. I want to step up compression directly, easily.there is a ring around the top of cylinder, and will use copper there too...

my question is about thickness, with the ring at the top, it should go quite thin, but I do not know how thin.

is .032" ok?

I can't quite find a generalized subject about this.

[std]

Re: copper headgaskets

How thick were the original gaskets? I can't believe you will gain very much compression with just a head gasket change.

[Barry Donovan]

Re: copper headgaskets

How thick were the original gaskets? I can't believe you will gain very much compression with just a head gasket change.

the stroke is 2.65 inches..my pinky is bigger.
It is dramatic. Just porting heads less than 1mm is 8500 rpm...the rest factory.

the gaskets are very thick, overdone. I did find a site that was informative, what I have is a common paranoid setup for little engines by oem.
the site I found could be helpful to alot of engines...

ironically called
headgasket.com

thier approach is exactly what I was looking for, and an explanation of o-rings, and they sell them.
.032 is ok...
and a note for the engine itself, every move is exponential, it is never a set math. increase hp by 10? it is something way different out the other end...the entire throttle curve is different..self balanced does this...must be careful... :
beetle owners know what I am saying.