Lister CS water jacket presure limits question.

[cujet]

A modern head gasket will easily hold high pressures. However, the castings on my Listeroid are such poor quality and so thin in spots, I can't imagine they'd hold up long under 100PSI use. I do run a 13PSI cap on my radiator and it does boil over from time to time, with no water in the oil.

However, I did install new O rings on the liners and I used DC-4 silicone O ring lube to install them.

[Tijean]

The listeroid gaskets have no wraparounds of any of the coolant or studs passages; only the combustion chamber has the continuous wrap of the one surface up and over the other. At the other openings the fibrous filler is exposed. The outer perimeter also is not wrapped so the resullt is coolant has a lot of opportunity to get to the stud holes or escape and leak externally.

The amount of sleeve protrusion can bias the pressure more to the sleeve area and leave poor bite in the coolant area. The Dursley Listeroids were not sleeved so had a flat deck and much less liklihood of a coolant leak. Also had more head bolts.. The O ring seal is plenty capable providing the O rings are not damaged or twisted on installation and there is no casting voids or porosity in the cylinder casting sealing surface. I wouldnt dream of anything over 15 psi; certainly not connect to domestic service pressures.

[Stan]

Anubis....I think you've got your answers.  The Lister design was never supposed to support any more water pressure than about a 3 or 4 foot head for cooling.  Don't know what this works out to in ft/lbs but I don't want to find out either because that'd mean a leaking head gasket and that'd mean trouble.
Stan

[Tom]

It's .43 psi per foot of elevation so about 2 psi for a 4 food head.