too much noise and too many leaks

Why are you using steel head gaskets? Composite are much more foregiving to heat cycles ans warping, steel will not flex. Composites are good up to 12 to 1 compression. Also steels don't generally last very long, used by reacers this isn't a problem because the heads are coming of fairly often. I don't know the specifics but steel gaskets require the mating surfaces to have acertain finish machined on them, different roughness.