What's this head look like?

I suspspected my head gasket was goin as I've had problems with over heating for quite a while, doesn't do a lot of miles so never bothered me, but it warms up very quick and will idle up to temp in 15 min,

I've cleaned the head up abit. Gasket looked fine. The only things I can see are at each end of the head, see pics

Anyone? James?

head gasket was leaking you can see black soot stain across the fire ring on no4,its best if you dont clean it for diagnosis , if gasket was blown through youd have coolant pouring out of header tank and rough running, most pressurisations are just leaks across the gasket and show by staining

Cheers pal, it had head gasket and oil on it. I've wiped it up and scrapped the gasket with I knife blade but that's it, gona check if the head is warped,

Could that have been causing my problems? The gasket hasn't blown through, warming up quick? Idle up to full temp in 10/15 min

would have led to some pressurisation and so coolant loss

Cheers pal, I'm taking it for testing and skimming on Tuesday, going to pick up everything I need on Tuesday, and get it rebuilt, then fit my challenge wings

mine takes ages to warm up on idle, sounds like there is no coolant moving around at all, the pump should circulate the coolant around the head till the thermostat opens, maybe james is right and it is being blown out, but you should have seen this as bubbles coming in the expansion tank.

No bubbles, head was tested and was ok, it was skimmed valves ground and stem seals changed. All built up and running fine again and I changed 2 core plugs