promote selective preferential fiber orientation during molding such as during injection molding by controlling the direction of flow and location of the introduction of the resin fiber mixture into the mold for sealing beads to perform their intended sealing functions with thermoplastic resin composites of the types described herein it was determined that they should protrude above the main surface of the gasket body so that when the gasket is placed in an engine and the bolts are torqued the beads will deform deformation of the beads accomplishes two purposes namely the deformed areas have high unit area loadings which produce good seals and they are able to conform to small imperfections in either block or head which might otherwise produce leaks in accordance with the present invention the compound sealing beads 150 are specially configured and essentially comprise a compound bead over bead configuration compound beads 150 comprise a lower bead element 160 and an upper bead element 170 both of which project outwardly from the main surfaces 112 of the gasket body 110 bead element 160 may be similar in shape and size albeit of a somewhat lesser height than the bead described in u s pat no 4 817 969 bead element 170 is considerably narrower than bead element 160 and the first bead element is preferably at least twice the cross sectional width of the second bead element in a preferred embodiment the lower bead element 160 is of trapezoidal shape in cross section and has a bead width of from about 0 060 inch.