Thanks Dan, there are a few of your gaskets on there! Now, it's a shame you haven't started making KR head gaskets...
So, the CBT classic track weekend went well, where with a few suspension tweaks it now goes exactly where you want it to, and it stops now too!
Yesterday was the MSV classic trackday, a day that was spent dodging heavy showers.
I say a day, where at the end of the third session I noticed a minor problem (easily fixable), but worse I noticed a few bubbles appearing in the coolant header tank...
The rain hit again so I decided to call it a day as I have an entry in for Oliver's Mount hill climb in a couple of weeks and I didn't want to make it any worse than it is.
So today I had a look to see what was amiss. Before I pulled the head I measured the squish, which is a tight 0.75mm each side (more on this later).
So, head off and this is what I found: -
The (pattern) head gasket has failed again at the narrowest point between the combustion chamber and the water jacket. This time I'm pleased to say it's the right-hand side, where the previous failure was on the left. The underside is fine and there's no marks on the head.
Talking of squish, although it's tight I'm very pleased with the condition of the plugs, head and piston crowns. The squish is working well with super-unleaded, with no detonation and a nice burn pattern. It's a little rich but I'm happy with that. (Please note that the marks in the combustion chambers were existing, and all photos were taken before I cleaned anything up.).
So, in light of the above, the fact it's flying and after discussions with a couple of inmates from here I decided to use the new genuine head gasket that I stumbled across a couple of weeks ago.
New gasket in, coolant refilled and on first start-up a few bubbles appeared but then they cleared, which I hoped were just trapped air even though I spent a lot of time purging the cooling system.
A spin down my local test track proved positive, other than the fact that Cadwell suspension settings don't really suit bumpy B-roads!
This week I'll check the coolant level, retorque the head and hopefully we're good to go!