[Rev]

Originally Posted by andy669

One more thing I was thinking: Make sure theres not an extra head dowel pushed all the way up inside the head. Some times reused dowels can be real loose and when you pull the head off you might not even see it cause its all the way to the top of its bore. If the machine shop put new ones in, and theres one still stuck in the head, that will definately cause a leak. A similiar situation happened to me a few weeks ago, but it wasnt on the motor, it was on the flow bench. For awhile there I had the best flowing intake port in the country (it was sucking air beneath the head surface). I didnt notice what the problem was until I reversed the bench to exhaust and the rubber seal between the head and plate started flapping.

Andy

That actually did happen with me recently. I was reinstalling the heads temporarily to check piston/valve clearance after a new cam installation. I only installed the passenger side head with the old gasket to check the clearance. I noticed that I was missing a dowel which I knew I had earlier. You guessed it, there was an extra one crammed in the hole at the rear of the passenger side head. I'm damned glad I found out before the final installation of the heads after all the work of a new cam and intake being installed. Fortunately, I caught that screw up before it could do any real harm.

Rev