Can a set of marine Fel-pro head gasket be retorqued before the first heat cyle?.

after initial torque wait half an hour and then ONE bolt at a time loosen and retorque that bolt until all are done. I've had success doing that.

Thats how I've always done it as well.

I have been doing it the same was as above for more years than I can remember. This topic seems to keep coming up.

One thing that people forget is when you have bolts into water jackets and put sealer on them you don't want undo them and torque them again weeks later(or several hours)

WEe were discussing this very topic in another thread yesterday. The most recent set of instructions I've seen say to retorque after warming the engine. I can't find the slip, but will have one next week. You can always call FelPro- better safe than sorry- you're risking alot more than two gaskets.

i would not loosen the bolt, if you retorque, and you should not have to with iron heads just torque....Rob

My advice would be to just use Cometic gaskets. No need to worry about re-torqueing them ever.

What I have is a 1999-502 MPI 415 HP. Would you happen to know the Cometic gasket part number.

No, I dont. They make so many different gaskets. Besides bore size, they are sold in several different thicknesses. I would call Cometic and get the right gaskets for your application.

http://www.cometic.com/

The only way to truly tell which gasket you need is to measure your deck height. Proper squish dimension will mean the difference between getting max performance out of your engine or leaving 40-50 horsepower on the table.