odern sportbikes are wondrous machines. Lightning fast, agile handlers–not too many years back many a pro racer would have felt himself well equipped on one of these showroom rockets. Today’s box-stock sportbikes, the very same ones any rider can roll out of any dealership anywhere in the country, are not far removed from yesterday’s full-on factory-spec racebikes. Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha–no one’s left a stone unturned tuning these bikes to the n’th degree and squeezing out the maximum performance. But when you want that little bit extra where do you look?
     How about the gaskets? Specifically, the head gaskets. Cometic Gasket, a leader in the performance-gasket field, has done just that. They’ve just introduced a whole lineup of thin head gaskets, gaskets measuring just 0.018 inch thick. They’re all designed specifically to help make those already fast sportbikes just that much faster. Cometic’s MLS (Multi Layer Steel) high-compression sportbike head gaskets are a direct replacement, too. No other modifications are needed or required and, depending on what else is done along with the switch to the Cometic gaskets, the performance increases can be anywhere from 4 to 8 percent in horsepower. And these gaskets seal. They’re part of Cometic’s EST (Extreme Sealing Technology) lineup, so there are no worries about blow-outs or blow-ups. Decades of racing experience in everything from NASCAR to drag racing to off-road competition has kept Cometic right at the forefront of high-performance gasket materials. All that is right here in the high-compression sportbike head gaskets.
     And if you’re going the other way, if you’re trying to drop the factory compression level a bit to accommodate a turbocharger, Cometic has the head gaskets for that. There are sportbike head gaskets available all the way up to a hefty 0.098 inch thick. Either way, raising the compression or lowering it, you can do it safely with Cometic gaskets. And it’s all a lot faster, easier and certainly less expensive than a total engine teardown for re-machining.
     Gaskets might not sound like a path to performance, but they sure are when the gaskets are Cometic. Cometic Gaskets are available for all the popular sportbikes in all the displacements and they’re all available at Parts Unlimited.