I've done hundreds of head gaskets in my time, they are mostly a simple affair. Haven't done a V8...YET
But I'm sure I'll get a chance
I've been really lucky in that A) my engine is well under 30k miles and B) both times it overheated it suffered no ill's.
1st time was when I bought it. Drove about 3 miles to the local garage with the needle in the red, but luckily it only needed 2 litres of coolant to top it up. The 2nd time was when the top hose blew clean apart and clouds of steam made it look like a creeping fog bank
That evening it was something like -2 celcius so I limped home.
Anyhoo, the best thing to do is read up on it, watch video's of how it's done and do the RAVE thing. Make sure you photograph each phase as you go so you can refer back to the pictures if you get stuck. Also, get masking tape and a black felt tip pen, write down where each plug/socket goes so you can match them up again after, something like crank pos sensor and such like. Makes it real easy to put it back together. Same with the spark plugs, wrap a bit of masking tape round each one so they are marked 2,4,6,8 and 1,3,5,7 etc.
But most important of all, make sure there is a nice other half to make tea