anyone whos used RCD's black onyx head gaskets chime in

just heard from a dealer that 2 out of 10 trucks had head gasket failure that they put the black onyx gaskets in... i put them in my truck and havent had any trouble yet. but i was just wondering who all has had trouble with them??

Stock gaskets are the best and that's the general consensus you'll get around here.

RCD isn't the only place that sells the black onyx gaskets tho.

What are the advantages to using these over stock? Especially if you are running w/ studs?

Wera said:

What are the advantages to using these over stock? Especially if you are running w/ studs?

Click to expand...

Stock Is the way to go

My understanding is that the RCD Black Onyx and all the others sold under this name is a re-boxed Victor Reinz gasket. At any rate, I've been punishing mine for 5 months. We towed the 5th wheel from SoCal to ND through Montana and Wyoming to see Yellowstone, and all over the place. Tuning is super mild, but not stock and the truck and trailer weigh in at 20-21k combined. Towing miles since install in April totals just under 10,000 miles, and they have right at 15,000 on them total. When I'm not towing I run a 100hp street file.

So far I'm happy with them, but I did the install myself and treated the install like it I would have treated any race engine I've built or worked on and everything had to be exact, flat, and clean. Time will tell.

You may be a lucky case... I don't really think there are advantages to using BO. They may fail they may not...depending on how good you did the job and how you drive the truck. Also depends on if your block is flat and if the heads are flat and not warped. Did you get any of that checked out? If you really wanna know if they will last longer than others then tell us how do you drive use/abuse the truck and what did you do for block/head preparation.

We have had one failure but it was due to a machine shop mess up. Other than that we have had goose luck with them.

The engine we rebuilt had everything checked out flat from a machine shop not ford and they went out 6 months later. I would just use stock gaskets. Lessons learned.

09stroker said:

The engine we rebuilt had everything checked out flat from a machine shop not ford and they went out 6 months later. I would just use stock gaskets. Lessons learned.

Click to expand...

How did they blow exactly? Do you still have them by any chance?

What do you mean how? And yes I do.

How was kinda a stupid question...Im guessing they didnt totally blow out per say. Id like to know why exactly they don't hold. The only thing I know soo far is the fact that they are coated.

Copper is the only way to go imo if your pulling the heads

SouthFlstrokin' said:

Copper is the only way to go imo if your pulling the heads

Click to expand...

What the ***kkk are you talking asbout???oke:oke:

SIX_OHH said:

What the ***kkk are you talking asbout???oke:oke:

Click to expand...

Copper Gaskets are the way to go ....

Whose got copper gaskets?

I've only used stock. Ive never checked, but is there a big price difference to reason with black onyx? I know everyone here is like me and hates going in twice and rather do it safe the first time around.

SIX_OHH said:

Whose got copper gaskets?

Click to expand...

go to gogo's fb page dannys getting a set put on his truck and they look t!ts!
BTW i had black onyx on mine for over 2 years the gaskets held up fine heads didnt:doh: i when i replaced the heads i put black onyx gaskets back in it and so far their holding up

Yeah i seen the pic Doug posted on Facebook of the copper gaskets on Danny's block. They look good. It was already mentioned on PSN a while back that Doug was gonna install them on Danny's truck.

thanks for all the replies. i did all my own work myself when i installed mine. i had the heads completely rebuilt and machined, also cleaned the block real good and made everything right. ive had them in for about 2 years now and have had good luck with all my tunes but recently i opened the hood and there was a few spots on the bottle.... its not using coolant but i cant really tell if that was residual or if it was a leak. im gonna clean it off real good and run it on a hot tune and see what it does. if i gotta replace them i will... no big deal i didnt mind doing the job in the first place. but ill be using factory gaskets if it turns out to be a leak. at the time when i did the job 2 years ago i didnt know as much as i know now about these trucks but i seen them on ebay and called rcd about em and he told me they were using them on high hp trucks so i assumed they were better so i bought em...