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I've seen the paper water pump gaskets blow out - but that's usually if they are not coated in sealant. The paper absorbs the coolant and becomes soft and cooling system pressure is enough to force it out. Mostly we use the OEM gaskets because A : The good quality pumps like Aisin and NPW come with the metal gasket B : The gaskets come off clean requiring no clean up of old sealant. C : They always work, they never leak (assuming you don't have stripped mounting bolts - we routinely thread-repair all of them). And Fail-Pro is great for old Chevy's. Terrible for imports. GD

New radiator in. All back together. I'll put a 100 miles on it and watch it. Steering rack boots replaced, Rear Hatch release fixed. Hope it's good to go.

Half that much HP at the wheels will twist the Brat chassis up like a pretzel. We did a rally build that was in the neighborhood of 175 WHP and after driving it around the doors no longer closed properly and it had to be fully caged. Even with proper instruction and quite a bit of experience the driver put it hard into a tree and killed it. I personally lost control of the stupid thing twice on test drives. Ended up in someone's lawn narrowly missing a mailbox and on another occasion I spun it around 180 degrees into the grass adjacent to an on-ramp...... Honestly terrible handling vehicles if you give them power and the chassis is limp like wet tissue paper. Just don't. It's a Japanese farm truck. GD