Posted by Bob Thompson [172.249.80.183] on Friday, December 05, 2014 at 01:26:09 :
In Reply to: Why Make a Head Gasket So Narrow? posted by Greg Coffin [64.24.135.42] on Thursday, December 04, 2014 at 19:09:57 :
The why probably has to do with block length. Maintaining an engine size so that the frame and body don't need re-engineering.
And as Kaegi said, most of use fail to re-torque the head periodically and thereby precipitating failure of the gasket.