Worth Replacing a head gasket that is ok?

Good evening.

My 300tdi has just turned to 148ish thousand miles and I am planning a few tweeks in the future. Bigger intercooler, up boost to 16psi and give the fuel diaphram a bit of a tweek.

When idling cold it puffs a little (very very little) blue smoke, but soon clears when it gets a bit of heat in there, with no full throttle smoke etc. so generally the engine is in quite good health. The cooling system is in excellent condition and the temperature stays rock solid apart from climbing a bit when towing up a long hill.

I do also belive it is on its original head gasket (no signs of marks to bolts etc indicating a socket has been on there), therefore wondered whether If replacing it would be a sensible precautionary measure given the milage and planned tweeks.

Should I just leave it alone and deal with a failure if it occurs? I'm not exactly keen to carry out pointless work on it if can be avoided. It seems from a lot of the posts that they seem to fail when things get hot, and otherwise seem pretty solid.

Long winded post but I've given the best picture of the overall condition of everything as it stands.

Cheers

James

might be worthwhile if original ,gasket wont last forever ,and is fairly easy job,also feel rad allover to make sure no cooler areas

Hi check Egt temp as this much boost will raise your Egt to a dangerous level!! Causing head gasket failure , also are your injectors working correctly !!!!!! Has your inj. Pump been adjusted for more fuelling etc ?? All of these things will affect performance !! Compressions all good etc ??? You may be opening a wriggly expensive can of worms my good man !!! Good luck!!

max boost as std is just over a bar .shouldnt think 16 psi would be much to worry about

The engine had not been touched until I bought it!

I turned the diaphram 90 degrees and with that you get a light haze of smoke on hard acceleration, and much better performance. However I would like to go further! I will fit a bigger intercooler and straight through rear silencer, as the standard one looks horribly restrictive, Then decide whether to tweak the turbo. (i'll rebuild that before turning it up, or junk it for a better one if a disco 200tdi manifold will fit but that's another project)

Regarding compression test I suppose I ought to get one carried out.

But yeah if that turns up ok, I suppose its easier to change a gasket on my terms rather then fate!