Comparing Head Gasket offerings, Trying to identify what head gasket to get for my car Options

[phrax]

Hello!

I've got a '94 GT-S with the 5S-FE and coolant leaking into cylinder #2. There is no coolant in the oil, but I can still blow steam out the exhaust even after driving around 20-30 minutes. The coolant smells like exhaust, and I recently had the plugs out, put some paper over the spark plug holes, cranked it over and found the spot above cyl #2 was wet and didn't evaporate (gas does). The other day after driving home from work I decided to rev the motor up to 4-5k a couple times just to see what would come out the back. This was a bit of a surprise, and looked kind of neat.





To give a bit of back story, about two months ago the car overheated on the highway and puked out the remaining coolant through the overflow. When I managed to get the car home I concluded that it was the water pump as after re-filling the rad, I could see a tiny stream coming from the side of the pump housing. I replaced the water pump, timing belt and thermostat, and hoped it was solved. However, after driving for a couple of weeks, I found that I had to top up the radiator a few times. This brings us up to now, with the info from the first paragraph.

The car is losing coolant through what I presume is a failed head gasket. There are no stickers to indicate the head gasket had previously been replaced. With some other posts regarding composite head gaskets in this year being a weak point, I'm confident this is my problem. Since I already did the water pump and timing belt, replacing the head gasket is within my grasp.

Now, onto my question.

The local Toyota dealer can't seem to order in the valve grind gasket kit for the '94 Celica (p/n: 04112-74502) as it's no longer available. That's OK, since that kit is unlikely to contain a MLS (multi-layer steel) head gasket. So I contacted the local auto parts, and they carry Fel-Pro. Looking at their site, the Head Gasket Set (p/n: HS 9861 PT) doesn't look to include an MLS HG either. That kit says it's for the Celica 2.2L 1990-1997. But, no MLS HG, so I'm not interested.

The Fel-Pro Head Gasket Set (p/n: HS 9468 PT) for the 1997-1999 Celica 2.2L does include an MLS HG, but the pictures indicate it doesn't include the same gaskets as the kit HS 8916 PT kit.

So I did a quick mspaint comparison of the head gaskets between the above kits.



They look pretty darn close, aside from the top three connected passages having different separators.

So, with the slight differences between those two kits, and the different number of gaskets, I don't know what to buy. There are other posts on here saying the felpro kit is ****, get something 'better'. But what is good if the OEM kit isn't available.

I started looking on Rockauto.com to see the offerings. For the '94, some kits have MLS gaskets, others don't. The Victor Reinz HS4920A includes a MLS head gasket, and is listed as "one of our most popular parts".

So, it's 2015, my car is now 21 years old, what head gasket kit should I be getting?

[955SFE]

As important as a Head gasket is, I would've gotten one from the dealer. Its something you shouldn't be looking for the lowest price. That's just my opinion. Good Luck.

[phrax]

As important as a Head gasket is, I would've gotten one from the dealer. Its something you shouldn't be looking for the lowest price. That's just my opinion. Good Luck.

I don't think I articulated my position on price. I'm not concerned about the price. The driving factor here is having the parts department of the local Toyota dealer say they could no longer order that part, and seeing various web sites indicate that the part is no longer available, I came to the conclusion that I won't be able to get one. I agree with you that going cheap is not the wisest of choices, and OEM parts is the best approach, but my problem isn't about how much things cost, but availability of parts.

One thing I haven't investigate enough is, is there a different OEM valve grind gasket kit, perhaps for a different vehicle like the Camry or MR2, that would work for this motor?