When you think of JE Pistons, you probably think of a quality piston manufacturer that has been making high performance forged pistons for over 60 years. That’s about to change with the addition of new products to the JE line up. Rolling out their new product line of head gaskets at the 2011 PRI trade show, we wandered over to talk with their technical expert, Alan Stevenson, about the head gaskets.

“These are true MLS head gaskets,” said Stevenson, “we are marketing them under the JE Pro Seal line.” According to JE’s Marketing Director, Sean Crawford, “a lot of our customers have been asking for head gaskets and this seemed to be a natural progression for us.”

Much like the other high performance products in JE Piston’s line of products, the manufacturing of these head gaskets is designed to ensure very specific tolerances are maintained for a long and dependable life in high stress applications. Stevenson explained by saying, “these head gaskets are actually a three layer gasket with each layer made from stainless steel. The layers are all cut with dedicated tooling that ensures the exact same gap every time.”

In addition to the dedicated tooling, the procedure used to emboss the layers is specifically tailored for a high performance seal. “We use a four stage embossing process that moves a little metal at a time to prevent the material from weakening. Then the layers are treated to eliminate any stress in the metal. This helps ensure that the embossed layers won’t lose any of it’s spring tension and will provide a positive seal for a very long time,” Stevenson said.

“The embossing process we use makes for a very strong gasket and the dedicated tooling gives us the ability to duplicate the exact same pattern, time after time. Even with the extra attention and specific tooling and procedures, these gaskets are competitively priced,” added Crawford.

Stevenson made sure to tell us about the proprietary coating on the gaskets, “the gasket is coated in stages with a primer layer for adhesion, then a Viton layer and a Silicone layer for sealing and protection. The coating is applied after the embossing process is complete, which is a key element to ensuring that the holes, like water passages and steam holes, are coated as well.”

Crawford told us that the company plans on having a full line of the Pro Seal head gaskets to cover most of the domestic and foreign aplications, as well as many powersports applications.

We plan on keeping our eye out for these gaskets to hit the market and when they do, you can count on us to run these head gaskets through their paces and report our results.