Well, I am in a silly situation.

Somehow in this timing-chain-now-new-bearings-gone-full-rebuild expedition, I ended up with two headgaskets.

<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/shiner.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/notooth.gif" alt="" />

One is an engnbldr (Rock) headgasket, graphite.
The other is Toyota.

So which one do I use? What are the substantive differences if any?

Edjumacate me. Obviously I can return the Toy HG, and not Ted's (part of a kit).

(PLEASE, no 'always use Toy name brand, I don't really know which one is better but that's just what I do...' reponses. Somebody makes them for Toyota, so everything is aftermarket... though usually, yeah, Toy is solid quality up to and not including oil filters. IMHO.)

Engnbldr (Rock) or Toyota branded? single choice

Toyota branded (45%, 5 Votes)

Engnbldr (Rock, graphite) (55%, 6 Votes)

Total Votes: 11 Voting on this poll ends: 06/07/08 04:05 PM

Eight folks responded... what are the reasons for your preference?

Ted did reply, he believes they are equal.

I think I'd hold them up side by side and just go with my gut feeling on which one seems better. When I did the head job on that Celica a year or two ago, I knew I wasn't keeping it, so I bought the Napa complete head set for 80 bucks, and was shocked by how good the quality was. I used a factory gasket on my truck, and it definitely was not the same, BUT I was hard pressed to find a comparative lack of quality from a visual inspection.

Also check both over carefully for defects... a friend who did an HG on a 7M-GE had a kit one that upon careful inspection, one of the 'fire rings' (I think that's the term) had crimped slightly in manufacturing, and looked for sure like it would fail in short order.

Just my 2 cents.

IMO, they are probably the same. As stated above, do a close visual inspection.
If you can't tell the difference, use the one from Engnbldr.
Why?
B/c you can probably eBay the Toyota one and get more for it than the other (due to the common thinking that Toy OE is made of gold).

I'd say to use the EB, simply because that's what I used, 15K miles ago on my own rebuild. No issues!

I'll just take it back to the dealer. Or sell it to my son, who will need one shortly.