While it’s not surprising that the New Products section of the SEMA 360 show is a down from the traditional selection of the latest and greatest wares from across the industry, what is surprising is to see Cometic Gaskets with three full pages of new products being announced at the show.

In addition to the quantity of part numbers, is the variety across the board of applications and types of gaskets. “We usually develop the head gaskets first, but sometimes the market will dictate what other products need to be made first,” explains Micky Hale, technical sales representative for Cometic. “We have been working towards getting some of the newer model kits together for the Street Pro line, like say a COPO kit or a new Coyote kit, and some of these parts need to be made to meet those end goals.”

To that end, there is quite the array of gaskets on the new products list, from head gaskets to exhaust gaskets, to valve cover gaskets, turbo gaskets, and timing cover gaskets, the Cometic lineup is expanding in every direction. “It really is a full gamut of new items,” says Hale.

Cometic has not been focusing on any one type of gasket or even one market segment this year, rather tackling the market demands as they come.

With such a variety of gasket models and materials with a given gasket lineup, it made us wonder how they determine what application gets what options. “On head gaskets, we would look at a few things,” Hale explains. “If it’s a diesel application or an application that has the potential to be modified (i.e. Coyote), that’s a great candidate for the MLX line. If it’s more likely to be a service replacement type of application, our MLS line is still an upgrade, but would be what we develop for that application.”

With the modern muscle segment fast-growing for Cometic, it’s likely that we will continue to not only see individual part numbers continuing to fill the catalog, but more model and engine-specific gasket kits coming to market, to make life easier with a single part number.