8v engine

[Mike8v]

Hi all
      Long story short Iv gone to replace the gasket which sits between the head and the cam carrier and I have noticed that in between the 2nd and 3rd valve spring there are presumably oil drain/feed holes and that the gasket that iv got does not have any holes for that section but as compared to the old gasket that is the same (no holes in it).  Should there be holes in it or not is basically what I am asking.  Ill try to get some pics later so you can see what Im talking about.

I thought I would get some advice first before I go and put the holes in the gasket.

Many thanks

[Mike8v]

After calming down a bit i went and had a good look and it seems that yes the gasket is missing a hole which would of explained my oil leak on to the exhaust manifold. 

So later on i will be doing some careful trimming to my gaskets

[Neil Lewis]

I just fitted a new head on my 8-valve and it seems that the heads and cam boxes come with two different drillings.

Early head had three holes on each side, one for each of the camshaft bearings.

Later heads had only two holes (one each side) under the cam-belt end bearings.  The cam boxes then had long holes drilled along them to distribute the oild from the cam belt end to the far (distributor) end.

My engine block had six drillings (three on each side) but my cam boxes were of two different kinds.  The new head had only the two cam belt end drillings so, because I couldn't drill the long holes in the "wrong" cam box, I drilled the missing holes in the head (very stressfuk).

All the cam box gaskets I've seen have been identical, ie, all three holes are punched through on both sides. In fact they're the same for both sides.  These appear to work just fine regardless of the head and block drillings, ie, I can see no reason to have cam box gaskets without all three oil holes like you seem to have.

However, the oil holes are very close to the edge so I always put a liberla coating of gasket cement on both sides of teh gaskets before fitting them.  And remember to put al the drilled dowels back in the right places since those distribute the oil correctly.  The diagram in the workshop manual is for the old-style head but does make the words above make sense.

Does anyone else know different?

Neil