Going to be pulling the heads to have them freshened up..what are the best head and intake gaskets to put back on?

mercury marine casket kit # 27-811546a04 , 27-843073a03

Factory Merc ones are best huh? Thanks

Call Bob @ Performance Gasket Concepts. 262-677-4690. He makes the gaskets for Merc Racing. He has been my gasket source for 10 years +. Tell him Mark @ MER sent you.

Awesome ..thanks Mark

You can't really go wrong with a Felpro 17048 or cometic gaskets either. They are easy to get and work very good.

The FelPro gaskets are probably a bit more forgiving if your deck and head surfaces are not perfectly flat and smooth. The Cometic's are an excellent gasket, but they specify an Ra finish of 50 or better to keep the thin viton coating from being damaged by scrubbing between head and deck during heat cycles.

The Cometics are good for a new build where the head and block decks are resurfaced, but my machine shop guys have always recommended Felpro on an engine where just the heads were off. Make sure the water ports on the gaskets have Merc Perfect Seal all around them, even on the Felpros to make sure there is no water seepage into the oil.

That is a excellent point. That fact is a Felpro or any paper type gasket, will wick or start to fall apart at the water ports. The graphite is a excellent repellent of the water, it will compress and hold it shape and is heat resistant. Here are some examples of my recommendation in a prior post on this thread.
Of course the top 2 are intake gaskets, with a stainless steel core, they are available in the 2nd one in .060 and .120 thick.
The head gasket graphite outer with a copper fire ring, this I use for anything over 750 hp, requires o-ring and a receiver groove in head, either naturally aspirated or boosted. The other style is full copper with graphite inserts at water ports and o-rings along bottom edge.
The others are graphite with stainless fire ring, there is also a mark 4, that is thicker for the cast iron blocks with cast iron heads, like for the older 540 Bulldogs.