Failed Head Gasket?

[stuart]

Interesting your comments about the steel one as when we used to race Jaguars back in the 70`s and 80`s we changed to the newer composite (With sealing rings) gasket as the steel ones didnt tend to stand the course.

Stuart.

[Motorsport Mickey]

I think the steel gaskets are just so...tough, and of course the Wellseal provided the "sticky" surface require to help waterways seal when it may be problematical.

The basic 20thou thickness (from memory) is the bottom line compressed figure and with 2 pressed compression rings if you are going off pist (and did I) as long as you maintained a mechanical integrity ie left enough of even part of 1 of the compression rings that was more than 20 thou thick you had an inbuilt Wills ring ( for new competition users google it).

Don't get me wrong you had to build the engine nicely...very nicely, no compromise upon measurement and fitments (18 part builds before the final build on a race engine with machining to maintain critical dimensions and blueprinting in between). But the cutting and tailoring the steel double compression rings let me move the head 3mm to give the offset head advantages whilst maintaining clamping compression. The head movement was done by moving the stud holes in the block (more difficult than slotting the stud holes in the cylinder head) because then the head doesn't even know it's been moved and as the first machining and build of a radical process, I determined that it deserved it's best chance. Having proved it by the car running reliably and winning it's class and TR championship in 1988  (and seeing the car and engine still running reliably in 2014, no doubt with inbuilt other mods carried out by various other owners in the interim) the current method of head stud slotting is in use  and if you want to be competitive in competition... is a must, now copied through TR racing worldwide. 

Mick Richards

Edited August 4, 2019 by Motorsport Mickey

[Ian Vincent]

Pete,

Many thanks for your very informative post.  Looks like I shall be sending my TR Shop gasket straight back and forking out the extra for the Racetorations one.  I am pretty confident that the latter will do the job because I printed out a copy of their website picture at an appropriate scale to match the stud holes up and it gave the clearance I needed.

Rgds Ian

[Ian Vincent]

The TR Shop gasket arrived today and when I put the original failed gasket over the top of it, it is clear that it is unlikely to last long. A lot of the fire ring will be inside the cylinder and the amount crimped between the head and the liner in the critical areas would be minimal with virtually no improvement on the previous stock gasket. 

So a Racetorations item it will have to be. 

Rgds Ian