Some believe steel gaskets work OK but also some don't. So there's the dichotomy, if you believe they will work OK then try them, nothing ventured nothing gained but rather you than me first, it'll only cost a few days work and $100 if they don't for a few gaskets and head bolts.

 

I am by no means an expert at anything. With that said, my mechanic is. He is 92 years old and has been rebuilding engines for 75 years. He specifically raced nailhead engines for years.

He rebuilt a motor for me recently and I provided Cometic gaskets and ARP studs for him and he refused to use them. I didn't ask why because he usually just yells at me.

 

I just watched the Cometic company video. Nice family history lesson but not one bit of information about how their design is superior to the competition, only that Cometic is willing to make gaskets nobody else is willing to make.

They need to get one of their engineers to explain why they are better, if they are better, and discuss specific applications where that superiority over the competition applies.

 

The gasket makes a "bead" where the metal is missing...

The head smashes down and where there are holes the gasket isnt compressed there, therefore it seals.

With our gaskets the material, coating, wears off and your left with a piece of metal anyway.

 

Raceline


To my knowledge, steel head gaskets have been around for circa 20-30 years in various uses and forms for mostly modern performance vehicles engines where the engines are regularly stripped down. When someone proves they have used steel head gaskets for 100K+ miles without any issues I'll be convinced

 

I'll throw in my $.02 however that's about what it's worth. Cometic are MLS gaskets (multi layer steel) and the biggest advantage seems to be reusability. I rebuilt a turbocharged BMW that used a cometic gasket and did just that, I pulled the head when changing pistons, then cleaned the gasket off off and slapped it back in. This car was originally a normally aspirated car when it left the factory with a conventional gasket 30 years ago however the turbo pressurized the intake side with 18lbs of pressure so the volume of air in the combustion chamber was multiplied many times over. Power went from 182hp at the crank to 383 at the wheels. The conventional wisdom was to use a cometic gasket and ARP studs to handle the increased pressure, which it has had no problem doing for 10s of thousands of miles now.

In that so many of these Rovers seem to have headgasket failures I think that a cometic might be a good choice from a reuse standpoint. My only concern would be that the paper gasket is failing for a reason and would using a cometic adversely affect whatever process is causing the failure and thereby cause something else to fail instead. Or would it be a cure???

 

IMHO like so many TD5's, the V8's overheat for various tangible reasons and many/most haven't any knowledge of metallurgy interaction so IMHO any MLS gasket won't overcome any overheated, warped and damaged alu cylinder head and the problem root causes will prevail whatever. ARP or any other head bolts aren't the answer to warped cylinder heads, nothing is.

 

If your heads are warped you're just wasting money on any headgasket.