Spitfire 1500 - head gasket failure

[yorkshire_spam]

I built the engine in 2020 just before Covid, so it didn't get fitted and on the road until 2021. Since then it's covered about 8000 trouble free miles - pulling well and needing nothing beyond basic maintenance (plugs, oil, etc)

On the RBRR this weekend the head gasket failed rapidly. Everything looked great when I checked the oil (required top-up) and water (none required) at John O'Groats on Saturday morning. The car continued to run great down to the second stop at Skiach Services, but after leaving there developed a mis-fire (briefly) and then the tell-tale white smoke screen out of the exhaust and a very sudden temperature off the scale over-heat. Engine off and coasted to a layby where "mayo" in the rocker was observed. 

Seems like when it failed it went rapidly?

So now my paranoia is working against me for any future events?

• Did I get something wrong in the build?
• Is it "just one of those things" ? 
• Is it useless to speculate before I extract the head and look for clues?

Head was skimmed before the build, new Payen gasket used (quality of new gaskets?), studs and nuts were new ARP ones for the build.

Any thoughts?

[egret]

Easy for me to say as a 3rd party (see my fiasco of head gasket failure where I went down several unnecessary rabbit holes and take my hypocrisy with a pinch of salt), but my experience suggests you take the head off, check block and head with a straight edge, and re-assemble with a new payen gasket.  I'd inspect the new gasket for quality before assembly- although I'll admit I'm not certain what I'd be looking for.

[Nick Jones]

I was sorry to hear about this failure.
 

You appear to have done everything right.  I assume that you did re-torque the head nuts at least once? What torques did you use? As discussed elsewhere on here, with better quality nuts & studs (especially nuts) torques can be pushed beyond factory numbers.

Pics of the gasket failure would be helpful maybe.

[yorkshire_spam]

16 minutes ago, Nick Jones said:

I was sorry to hear about this failure.
 

You appear to have done everything right.  I assume that you did re-torque the head nuts at least once? What torques did you use? As discussed elsewhere on here, with better quality nuts & studs (especially nuts) torques can be pushed beyond factory numbers.

Pics of the gasket failure would be helpful maybe.

Hmmm I wish I'd made proper notes when I built the engine - the nuts had a retorque after a couple of heat cycles of the engine. I'm sure of that. I'm pretty sure I torqued to 50lb/ft in 2 stages. (Book value is 46 I think?) 

Engine went in and ran on 16 April 2020, but then sat in the garage until the MOT and Border Raiders in August 2021. As I said, since then about 8k in trouble free motoring.

Checking back over my notes, I can't see a specific torque - so I'm working from memory over 5 years ago. 😞 

[Nick Jones]

Sounds ok. Could probably push the torques up a bit higher with ARP hardware.  
My only comment would be that if you are going re-torque after only a couple of heat cycles, you should probably do it again after 1000 miles or so.  On Bella recently we’ve had just the one re-torque at about 1,500 miles. Longer than I would have chosen, but we got away with it.

Curious to see where/how it failed - especially whether it had anything to do with those silly holes in the deck!

[RogerH]

21 hours ago, egret said:

Easy for me to say as a 3rd party (see my fiasco of head gasket failure where I went down several unnecessary rabbit holes and take my hypocrisy with a pinch of salt), but my experience suggests you take the head off, check block and head with a straight edge, and re-assemble with a new payen gasket.  I'd inspect the new gasket for quality before assembly- although I'll admit I'm not certain what I'd be looking for.

I read on one of the forums recently that Payen are not what they were.

Have been taken over and quality went south

 

Roger

[thebrookster]

23 minutes ago, RogerH said:

I read on one of the forums recently that Payen are not what they were.

Have been taken over and quality went south

 

Roger

This was my muse as well. No personal experience, but plenty stories etc etc.

[yorkshire_spam]

13 hours ago, Nick Jones said:

Sounds ok. Could probably push the torques up a bit higher with ARP hardware.  
My only comment would be that if you are going re-torque after only a couple of heat cycles, you should probably do it again after 1000 miles or so.  On Bella recently we’ve had just the one re-torque at about 1,500 miles. Longer than I would have chosen, but we got away with it.

Curious to see where/how it failed - especially whether it had anything to do with those silly holes in the deck!

Thanks Nick - I'll apply more diligence with the re-torque this time around. I need to go fetch my gaskets box and see what I have in stock. 

 

[yorkshire_spam]

Hmmm my choices for replacement gasket seem to be:

• 2020 "vintage" payen gasket (spare from engine build)
• Whatever brand canleys/paddocks/etc are currently stocking
• See if I can source a NOS 1500 gasket from somewhere, whether payen or not.

I checked my gasket box and I have a few NOS 1850 gaskets of various brands, but only the 1 new 1500 gasket. 😞

 

[Sprint95m]

On 10/7/2025 at 11:28 AM, yorkshire_spam said:

I built the engine in 2020 just before Covid, so it didn't get fitted and on the road until 2021. Since then it's covered about 8000 trouble free miles - pulling well and needing nothing beyond basic maintenance (plugs, oil, etc)

On the RBRR this weekend the head gasket failed rapidly. Everything looked great when I checked the oil (required top-up) and water (none required) at John O'Groats on Saturday morning. The car continued to run great down to the second stop at Skiach Services, but after leaving there developed a mis-fire (briefly) and then the tell-tale white smoke screen out of the exhaust and a very sudden temperature off the scale over-heat. Engine off and coasted to a layby where "mayo" in the rocker was observed. 

Seems like when it failed it went rapidly?

So now my paranoia is working against me for any future events?

• Did I get something wrong in the build?
• Is it "just one of those things" ? 
• Is it useless to speculate before I extract the head and look for clues?

Head was skimmed before the build, new Payen gasket used (quality of new gaskets?), studs and nuts were new ARP ones for the build.

Any thoughts?

Sorry to learn of your troubles Sam.

 I’ve no experience working on Spitfire engines but have a couple of thoughts, if I may?

Are the cylinder head studs 7/16”UNF?
I know the T2000 mark one HGF problem was solved by going from 3/8” to 7/16” studs.

Dolomites don’t have a header tank. Instead a sort of expansion bottle is used. This is the weakest link in the cooling system, it can be extremely difficult to get a cap to function properly. Are spitfires the same? 
This can be avoided by fitting an expansion tank (from be any reasonably recent car)

 

thanks

Ian

[yorkshire_spam]

56 minutes ago, Sprint95m said:

Sorry to learn of your troubles Sam.

 I’ve no experience working on Spitfire engines but have a couple of thoughts, if I may?

Are the cylinder head studs 7/16”UNF?
I know the T2000 mark one HGF problem was solved by going from 3/8” to 7/16” studs.

Dolomites don’t have a header tank. Instead a sort of expansion bottle is used. This is the weakest link in the cooling system, it can be extremely difficult to get a cap to function properly. Are spitfires the same? 
This can be avoided by fitting an expansion tank (from be any reasonably recent car)

 

thanks

Ian

Hi Ian,

The studs are 7/16 ARP - so unlikely to be an issue unless I failed to torque them correctly.

The Spitfire doesn't even have an overflow/header - I think they have an overflow as standard? Mine has been missing since I got the car and never had an issue with water loss of overheating like this. I might look at a header though.

Cheers, Sam

[Nick Jones]

5 hours ago, yorkshire_spam said:

The studs are 7/16 ARP

Are they? Usually 3/8” UNF on 4 pots. Should be entirely adequate in ARO form though and in fact I believe the OE studs are also quite adequate with decent nuts.

6 hours ago, yorkshire_spam said:

Whatever brand canleys/paddocks/etc are currently stocking

Some reasonably recent discussions on a WhatsApp group including DP of Canleys seems to show that Payen had a dodgy patch a few years back when production moved but a ok again now, though in any case some (including DP) consider the silver ones stocked by CC to be marginally superior.

[yorkshire_spam]

12 hours ago, Nick Jones said:

Are they? Usually 3/8” UNF on 4 pots. Should be entirely adequate in ARO form though and in fact I believe the OE studs are also quite adequate with decent nuts.

You are quite right Nick, I couldn't remember when I replied, so I looked up the ARP P/N on their website and still managed to get the wrong answer.(Failed to notice that the quoted size is socket, not thread) Clearly yesterday was not my best thinking day. 

 

Edited October 9 by yorkshire_spam

[PeteStupps]

Seems strange to my simple brain, that you'd get 8k miles of happy motoring then an abrupt HG failure. Is this the car you used for the previous RBRR @yorkshire_spam?

Just speculating, but could a blockage or restriction in the water jacket result in local overheating, which then runs away into HGF?

[JohnD]

Just my two pennorth.   The RBRR is significantly different form normal.running, unless you normally storm motorways for hours on end.   And ive been told of the poor quality Payens, previouslythe top of the crop.

One small.point: a retorque should be to loosen the nut a quarter turn or so, then retighten.   In rotation, as for installing them.  Or so ive been told.

John

[JumpingFrog]

1 hour ago, JohnD said:

Just my two pennorth.   The RBRR is significantly different form normal.running, unless you normally storm motorways for hours on end.   And ive been told of the poor quality Payens, previouslythe top of the crop.

The other side of the coin is that long distances don't matter than much if there is only limited heat cycling and load is mostly low to moderate A-road and motorway cruising?

Or maybe I misunderstand what the RBRR involves? I do hope one day to take part.

[Hamish]

Can’t see the blame laying with the rbrr, unless you were racing it as I saw a couple if cars. 
Ad as I recall you were a long way into the trip. Sounds like a gasket failure itself ?

[JohnD]

Sorry, JF!   This long thread was started by Yorkshire spam who was on the RBRR, and I didn't understand that the conversation had moved on to your problems! Hope you get it sorted.

John

[yorkshire_spam]

10 hours ago, PeteStupps said:

Seems strange to my simple brain, that you'd get 8k miles of happy motoring then an abrupt HG failure. Is this the car you used for the previous RBRR @yorkshire_spam?

Just speculating, but could a blockage or restriction in the water jacket result in local overheating, which then runs away into HGF?

Yes, same car, same engine as 2023 rbrr.

I made a real effort to pressure wash and de rust the water jacket when I built the engine, so if it is a blockage in the jacket I'll be "well miffed"

2 hours ago, JohnD said:

Just my two pennorth.   The RBRR is significantly different form normal.running, unless you normally storm motorways for hours on end.   And ive been told of the poor quality Payens, previouslythe top of the crop.

John

Over the 8k it's had a real mix of spirited roads (border raiders) and motorway cruising and a previous rbrr. 

24 minutes ago, Hamish said:

Can’t see the blame laying with the rbrr, unless you were racing it as I saw a couple if cars. 
Ad as I recall you were a long way into the trip. Sounds like a gasket failure itself ?

I think either a gasket failure or my failure to retorque at the appropriate time. 

[aoie]

You did not post a picture of the blown gasket, specifically the failure area.

I had a similar problem posted back in 2019, discovered the problem was a alignment hole (Spigot hole) too close to the cylinder causing gasket failure multiple times. Once I plugged the hole so it was flush with the cylinder block head surface, no more failures. Also switched back to the El-cheapo gaskets when swapping heads and still no failures.

 

[yorkshire_spam]

51 minutes ago, aoie said:

You did not post a picture of the blown gasket, specifically the failure area.

Haven't stripped the head off yet. Started, but really short of time this week with work and stuff. 

[aoie]

Highly recommend taking the time to plug the unneeded holes even if they turn out not to be the reason your gasket blew.

I suffered replacing the HG 3 times before solving my problem that also showed up after shaving my head for a 9.0 compression.

[Nick Jones]

1 hour ago, aoie said:

Highly recommend taking the time to plug the unneeded holes even if they turn out not to be the reason your gasket blew.

I suffered replacing the HG 3 times before solving my problem that also showed up after shaving my head for a 9.0 compression.

Me too. There’s a bit about in my “Her name is Bella” thread as I plugged the alignment holes in our block.

[yorkshire_spam]

Head is off...

Obvious "damp" in and around #4 and a stark contrast when looking at the head!

 

Underside of gasket around #3 / #4

 

Top side of gasket around #3/#4

[PeteStupps]

Don't know if it's conclusive but those pics support what @aoie was saying. The gasket is distorted around that pesky hole. Does that mean it started there? Dunno...