Just asked this question on another thread where a guy has overheating issues.

Does anyone make a good thick hd hg that wont fail as much as the current ones on the market? Has anyone tried doubling up hg's, one stacked on top of the other(tacked with hylomar/rtv), would it work? Just seems crazy to me that these rigs have so many cooling issues with a bad hg being the end result of everything else failing. Would this be a possible answer to the back water ports eating away at the hg??? Just food for thought...

 

Cometic makes Rover V8 head gaskets.

 

its just one of those things every 75-100k you need to replace head gasket, really not much different than all the cars and truck that need the timing belts changed at 60-100k.

 

Doubling up or using a thicker HD gasket would lower the compression ratio. I think the main thing that can help alleviate gasket issues is a re-engineering of the way the gasket is designed and manufactured. If anything I'd imagine a thicker version of the same design would only put more stress on the wall of the gasket, being that there's now more surface area there for it to have to contend with. Maybe???

I remember from the BMW world when folks would turbo their engines they'd go with a thicker gasket to lower the compression and buy a little more psi at max boost. Or something like that. I switched to LR before I ever got to install my hairbrained diy turbo kit.

 

There is nothing wrong with the Rover head gaskets, if they fail at all it is usually because the heads were not torques evenly which is why studs will give you far better results.