B230FT MLS or not?

Long time no see everybody, lot of changes since I initially built the car.
Basically threw out the 19t and and 90+. went for a tubular exhaust manifold and external waste gate with a HX40 and .82 exhaust side.
Finally got the car tuned well also little rich but it ripped.

While doing a 4th gear pull with the wastegate set to 20psi and I managed to stretch all the head bolts and blow the head gasket spectacularaly.
Blew straight through the front and back of the hg


SO with that being said I checked the head with a straight edge and got a .002 between 1&2 and 3&4, .003 between 2&3 so I don't think the head is warped too badly.
My plan is to go arp studs and .040 MLS with a slight deck.
Pretty sure the block is straight and don't want to pull it for machining if I don't have to.
Going to double check it with a straight edge Monday.

My question is if this whole machining match head to block is that big a deal if I am using such strong fasteners?

I would surface the head and leave it at that, just so it is true before you reinstall. I would also measure the piston height in the bore. You should be able to run the next thickness down without an issue, possibly even a .030" depending on how far down the pistons sit in the bore. Tightening up the squish actually helps with detonation resistance.

FWIW I'm running a .036" Cometic on mine, with pistons sitting .003" above deck (block was decked to spec).

The MLS gasket likes perfect surfaces on both sides, so unless you're having the block decked and the head resurfaced I wouldn't recommend it. You ought to have the head done regardless of what kind of gasket you put on, I did the same thing your talking about and only made it 3 months before popped the hg again.

Too much timing?

Stock bolts and gasket have been used in engines with much more power. If stock gasket won't hold with assumed power level, MLS is installed and you have stock pistons, you should be prepared for piston damage in the future.

i used a cometic MLS without prepping the sortblock (other then a good cleanup). The head had been planed. I used brand new TTY bolts. It worked just fine and held up to 15psi during high speed runs . I think it will work even better when studs are used.

Honestly I think if you are keeping the engine with a stock bottom end, you should use a stock elring head gasket and new bolts. The head gasket is your fuse on your stock longblock car. With out that youre going to burn up a piston. You should really look at getting at least a good wideband and a tune

cosbySweater said:

Honestly I think if you are keeping the engine with a stock bottom end, you should use a stock elring head gasket and new bolts. The head gasket is your fuse on your stock longblock car. With out that youre going to burn up a piston. You should really look at getting at least a good wideband and a tune

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Car is running on ms2 extra and has an aem wideband installed, bottom end was done like 2k miles ago. Hot tanked, bored, forged rods with Arp bolts, but oversized stock pistons.
My spark table is probably a bit too aggressive as mentioned above, kinda learning as I go with the whole tuning thing. If anyone wants to check out the tune I have datalogs on my computer.
It was doing an odd hiccup every once in a while around 5700 rpm, like it would smack redline or something even though it's set to like 6200 rpm.

Think I'll go for the resurface and slightly oversized mls like a couple of you said.
The only place I saw so far that stocks the arp studs is yoshifab but it seems a bit pricey. Posts on here were saying they got them for $180 and was wondering where they got such a deal lol