Vince, I have (among others) an old stock Victor 800 and a new unmarked gasket from Bert's in Denver, both copper sandwich type. Both of them meet your ~0.455" spec between the valves, but neither of them come close to clearing the oversized Lincoln intake valves I got from Dave Daigh. He calls them 1-7/8" valves, but they actually measure about 1-13/16" overall OD. Stock Model A valves are called 1-1/2" but actually measure about 1-9/16 overall OD, so I'm calling my Lincoln valves 1-3/4".
On the recommendation of Max at H&H, I bought a couple of Best 509G "Graph Tite" gaskets and installed one. It clears the valves with room to spare, but only measures about 1/4" at valves and pistons. It's been in just a few weeks, so I have only about 600 miles on it, but so far so good.
Joe
From the Best website:
GraphTite™ (suffix of “G”) – consists of Kevlar reinforced graphite facing material mechanically bonded to both sides of a perforated steel core. This modern engineered, high-performance material is rated to a temperature of 1400 degrees-F. Steel fire rings are installed in the combustion chamber areas of the gasket.
GraphTite™ head gaskets have superb sealing characteristics, excellent torque retention, and hold up to the punishment dished out by high-performance engines – high quality all the way. This gasket might be overkill for cruiser engines, but so what . . extra performance never hurts!