head gasket repair, will it help performance? Options

[saleeka]

well ive recently developed a leak from my head gasket, and ive taken a bank loan out to have it repaired. new seals and other parts will be put in, and im wondering if this will restore some performace to my car. Also, is my car now more "prepared" for tuning since it has new cylinder seals and such? Im not the smartest when it comes to this so thats why im asking. Also since ill now owe the bank 2 grand for various repairs to make the car like new again, ive decided to hang on to my celica indefinitly since im about to put that large a sum of money into it to keep her going... and i really want to make it my "project" car that I hang on to and enjoy for a long time to come... so is it restoring what was lost, or does it just fix what broke?

[khanster]

basically what your doing is just fixing the problem. by putting a new head gasket on it you will get no performance gain. If you want a performance gain from you head you must port the intake and exhaust larger than oem. Another thing is shave your head down a notch increasing compression. Re-seat your valves, clean the head very thorougly leaving no carbon then you may gain about 10-15hp. from shaving the head and porting the intake and exhaust.

whoa... 2g for a head job that's hella expensive. where do you live. I did mine for less then 300bucks