[1down5up]

Indy 500. on my last engine the head gasket had the big holes on the PTO side. Now I have a new/rebuilt engine and coolant started leaking out of the head instantly. when I pulled the head off I noticed that the big coolant holes were on the mag side. This engine was supposedly rebuild under the watchful eye of a Polaris tech (my ass). What Polaris tech would reuse a head gasket and coat it with RTV? Anyway, I always thought that the PTO side ran hotter than the mag side. Hence the bigger coolant holes on one side. Anyone know? Please don't just guess or THINK you know. I'm already bitter about this whole deal.

Thanks for your knowledge.

 

[myvertxcape]

Why not just match it up with the holes on the head?

 

[1down5up]

All the holes are the same size. My guess is the gasket dictates what side gets more coolant flow. For what reason I don't know.

 

[polarisorbust]

the small holes go on the pto side, these engines do not run a thermostat so the gasket acts as an orifice to slow down the coolant to absorb the heat on the pto side the mag sied is right next to the water pump so it gets the cold coolant first so it doesnt need to absorb as much heat.

 

[XCR]

does it not say "EX" and "PTO" "top" on the gasket? i know my xcr head gasket said that, so it was pretty dummy prof.

 

[1fastxc]

Exactly what polarisorbust said. The big holes go to the mag side. The small holes restrict coolant on the pto, because without them, the coolant would take the least path of resistance, and just go through the pto side(closest to the waterpump) and not really go through the mag side.

 

[1down5up]

The waterpump is on the mag side. The gasket doesn't say anything. Thanks for the help guys.

 

[1down5up]

Scraping gaskets blows. Took me two beers to get all that crap off.

 

[yamarx1]

On the 500 engine small holes go to mag side this allow coolant to reach the pto side. Putting big holes near mag side will cause coolant to follow path of least resistance an flow from pump up mag side and into head and out engine which will make the pto side run hot. Put a light coat of anti seize or aluminum paint on both surfaces of head gasket they will not stick on cylinder. Now that you have the small holes on mag side place the gskt on top of cylinder and flip a few times one way the holes line up better ( if its a polaris gskt I think there is a notch that goes to the exhaust side between the cylinders ) Hope this helps

 

[1down5up]

For future reference, Yamarx1 is right. The big holes go to the PTO side. I spoke with 3 different Polaris mechanics today at 3 different dealerships and all of them said the same thing as yamarx1. As for the rest of you, if I would have burned down another engine because you told me to put the gasket in WRONG, I would have had to find where you live and throw this engine through your living room window. Yeah,I'm that pissed off about it.