Hi Mike,

No it's not an issue I find. What I would say to you is a lot of people wrongly diagnose head gasket failure. For example you are saying the head bolts stretched and lost clamping force? How did you ascertain this?

As standard the finish on the block face from the factory is a mix of between acceptable to poor. The reliability of any head gasket is a function of many factors but the two most important factors are correct flatness and surface finish and uniform clamping. This can only be achieved correctly if you have the correct equipment and knowledge to machine the engine componets correctly. Even then you must prep and assemble the engine correctly!

If you like I'm happy to discuss my findings with you on this, off this site, as its something I've been gathering info on for over 5 years now and now have enough surrogate data to draw a conclusive answer!!

You will be shocked Mike!!