"O" Ring & Reciever Grooves

What is the accepted or should I say correct specifications for the O ring depth compared to the diameter of the wire & how deep should the reciever grooves be, assuming a iron block & alloy heads. Thanks.

 

These are the dimensions I was given

Machine o-ring receiver grooves in block (.070: wide, .020” deep)
Machine o-ring grooves in heads (.040” wide, .024” deep to suit .040” wire)

Regards PC

 

I know it isn't the norm, but I put o-ring groove in the block-sleeve. I believe it to be more stable in the cast iron and less apt to work loose, and dont get beat up as much when the heads get taken off and worked over.

 

A lot of people have trouble with the grooves in the heads fracturing at the point where the cylinders meet when grooving the heads.

R/G

 

Seeings how no-one else put up any specs, would you all agree on the above?

 

Ours are BBC's.

Wire is in the block deck surface, no sleeves in our stuff.

Ø4.800 on center, they basically touch inbetween the cylinders.
.039 wide
.029 deep
.041 SS wire from Clark

This is what we've been doing for years.

We do have recieving grooves in some of our stuff but I can't recall the numbers right off.

 

I have also used the same specs as Sodak on my BBC it was a bowtie iron block with aluminum head and the heads were not o-ringed. This is also the specs recommended by Flatout to use when not using a reciever groove. Using these specs will give you about 25% penetration of a .040 gasket this will provide sufficient bite without weakening the gasket due to overpenentrating it.

Flatout link,

http://www.flatoutgroup.com/gaskets/techtips.asp

Conversly if you are using a reciever groove then I have been told and agree that you would want more o-ring standup to provide greater distortion of the gasket, that is it would be pushed deeper into the reciever groove (and have less penetration) so in this case the numbers that MKR-588 suggested would be good numbers to use, I have also read from gasket manufacturers that the depth and width of the reciever should be as MKR-588 stated but I can not find the information to link to.

Richard Gavle