On the way back from the roling road my head gasket went! Can anyone recomend me 1 that's going to last more than 250 miles!!! I'm running 18psi and it made 197 bhp.

 

Standard.

I'm running 350bhp at about 30psi. Does OK for me.

 

really? on a standard gasket? fair play.would never have thort it wud hold that amount of pressure

 

By standard to you mean genuine ford or just from a motor factors?

 

Ford or Payen. Nothing else. But make sure your head isn't warped.

 

Go for Gen Ford or Cometic, I had a Payen one which had a faulty fire ring and lasted less than half a mile!

You must have a smooth block/head for the Cometic one though.

 

At least I've had some luck, just found a Payen head gasket on ebay for £16

 

Payen IS exactly the same as genuine Ford, except the logo. Trust me on that one.

Can't see any reason to use anything else.

 

As Christian says, Standard Ford all my friends with CVH's run them with no hassle, incuding one with 25psi.

 

Yup Ford or Payen mate.

 

Ford or Payen, worked for my 18 PSI....

 

What they like to do? Will I have any hidden problems? anyone got any tips?

 

very easy to do mate but make sure you follow the torque sequence in the haynes manual and makes sure you send the head somewhere to be checked and skimmed before re-sitting otherwise your efforts may be wasted

 

Cheers mate. I'll get the head skimmed anyway as a matter of course. I've also just found a receipt for a cometic head gasket, I thought these were supposed to be the muts nuts?

 

same here 28psi on a t34 with standard ford bolts no problems,

 

They're good if the block and head are perfectly flat, shite otherwise IMO.
Go gen. Ford or Payen all day long as said

 

i used a felpro one and mines running just under 1.5 bar and is sweet had it on rollers today got 239bhp out of it

 

Go for competition headbolts my friend, i use these in all my engines i build, they do not stretch like the standard Ford jobbies! They are slighlty longer also which increses thread engagement.

 

You make it sound like they stretch but they are not supposed to!! LOL. I've used ARP's in mine and have since gone back to £10 Payen bolts. They need to stretch, because the head and block are made from different materials!!

It's just something abou the CVH, years of experience have proved to me that the standard gasket and bolts are the only thing to use up to 350bhp.

 

as christian said i got standard ford gasket and bolts and run 20 p.s.i and have done thousands of faultless miles

 

From years of building RST engines, i find that the std bolts are prone to snapping due to there thinner shank. This is exagerated even more if the water leaks into the bolt area causing premature corrosion.

I understand that there are two different materials here, cast iron and aluminium, but the cossie is the same setup and that doesnt use stretchbolts, it uses bolts with a greater tensile strength that are less prone to stretch.