I was back at Francois’ shop to continue assembling the 330 engine we’re rebuilding together. I installed the oil pump and fuel pump drive mechanism and turned my attention to installing the timing chain.

There’s a sprocket inside the timing chest than needs to be installed with a fixed axle, but I was having trouble getting everything lined up.

The shaft goes through the hole at the center of the timing chest, but needs to align with the sprocket, bearings, and two washers before seating on the other side of the timing chest.

Francois machined a guide pin to align everything up so fitting the axle would be easier.

It was time to prep the head gaskets for installation. I have had a lot of history and experience with failed head gaskets, and I still get an e-mail from someone about every 6 months from around the world about a head gasket failure. These failures happen even before the engine is started and involves coolant leaking between the head and the block. The head gasket pictured above (I won’t name names), is the one I have had failures with, and whenever I get an email, the description I get from the shop describes these gaskets exactly. The coolant leaks occur at the water passages that you see at the bottom row and top row of the block where this gasket material is not compressing enough to seal the water passages. The silicone bead that is printed on this gasket doesn’t seem to help in the sealing either. Another problem is these engines are aluminum, with a steel cylinder liner that is machined to sit a couple thousandths higher than the deck of the block. The reason for this is as the engine heats up, the aluminum block expands a little more than the steel liner, so this difference in height allows the parts to stay sealed as the engine heat cycles. The problem is if the fiber material in the head gasket is too hard, it won’t compress enough to seal the difference when things are cold!

My solution is to use this gasket pictured above. It’s manufactured by Murray Glegg in Australia. We’ve known about his issue for many years, and Murray took on the task of designing and manufacturing a gasket that doesn’t have these sealing problems. As you can see, each water passage is completely surrounded by a silicone ring, top and bottom, and the fiber material is softer than the other brand. I’ve been using Fiorano Spares’ gasket for years and have not had a failure. Although the usual suppliers carry other brands and claim they don’t have problems, it’s very hard to trust what they say if I’m still getting the occasional e-mail from someone still having problems! I’m not saying the other gaskets will always fail, but even one failure is not acceptable. There are a lot of hours that goes into assembling an engine before one realizes the gasket has failed, so it’s not worth the risk! Murray makes gaskets for many Vintage and modern Ferraris, so it might be worth a call before you take a chance on an inferior gasket!

Here’s some of Murray’s contact information in Australia. His e-mail is murray@gleggman.com