Best valve cover gasket

[chiphead]

I know this has been beat about before, but what's the latest opinion on the best valve cover gaskets to use on an 8 valve gs motor. Thanks.
Happy New Year folks!

[Jd Powell]

I have had great luck with vesrah gaskets. The last time I needed one I went down to the local performance shop (AJ's performance cycle Phoenix Az Highly reccomended.) For 15 bucks I got a pack of five! Careful though the 2 valve 1000&1100 use different gaskets. The thou uses a symetrical gasket w/16 bolt holes. The 1100 gasket is asymetrical and has 19 bolt holes.

[Nessism]

Some people will chime in and say get a silicone Real Gasket bit I went with standard. If you lightly grease the gasket surface that contacts the head it will come off thus allowing you to use it again. Torque it down snug and you are done. With the silicone gasket you need to be careful how tight you make it or it can squeeze out. Modern vehicles using soft rubber gaskets also use shouldered bolts to control the gasket crush, something you will not have with your GS.

Good luck.

[bwringer]

http://realgaskets.com

Hands down, the silicone RealGasket is the best solution for 8-valve GS engines. Make sure you get the breather gasket too. They last a lifetime provided you PAY ATTENTION and don't allow any passing gorillas to torque the valve cover bolts.

I recently finished rebuilding a GS850 engine (see the For Sale section...) and installed a RealGasket. It appears he's making them from a somewhat firmer silicone these days, which should pretty much eliminate most issues with clueless mechanics over-tightening and squashing the gasket.

Again, if you pay attention to the proper torque, you won't have any problems with the older gaskets -- mine is about four years old, has been through at least eight or ten valve clearance checks. I've also installed them on several other bikes with no troubles so far.

The torque called for is only 15 inch-pounds, (NOT 15 foot-pounds) which is not much past finger-tight. There are very few torque wrenches available that are accurate in this range, and the ones that are available are extremely expensive. So until you train your fingers, you have to tighten in small steps and watch the gasket carefully to make sure it only compresses about 1/4 of its height. I use a very small t-handle driver and only two fingers.

On the 16 valve engines, results are mixed -- the sealing surfaces are much more narrow on these engines, and sometimes the gasket has been known to "squirt" out between bolts. The firmer silicone he's using now will probably help with this issue.

In addition, a few bikes that have the tach drive in the valve cover (I don't know which models these are) have had problems because the silicone gasket is thicker than the OEM gasket, and the tach drive doesn't mesh correctly with the camshaft.

[chiphead]

As always, excellent info.
Thanks and have a WICKED New Year!

[82Shafty]

I went with stock seeing that the first gasket was on there after 25 years, the second one will be on there for quite some time as well.

[bwringer]

I went with stock seeing that the first gasket was on there after 25 years, the second one will be on there for quite some time as well.

Not if you're doing valve checks every 4,000 miles as required... [-X


But of course, you can re-use the stock cardboard or Vesrah gaskets two or three times as long as you coat them with grease first as described above. They don't seal quite as well as a RealGasket, and in the long run, the RealGasket is a LOT cheaper.