After I saw the smoke - I looked in the radiator, and the level was low. got the sinking feeling in the gut. I checked the oil, and the level was 1" above the mark and frothy. typical indicator of coolant in the engine oil. No oil went into the coolant. That was all pristine "green". I then drained the oil, as you see in post 1.
Head Gaskets: I pulled the intake and valve covers - and took a pict of what I saw. Next, I pulled the cylinder heads, with the engine still in the car. One head gasket came off perfectly clean, attached to the cylinder head. One bank, the head gasket got mangled in the removal process. But after inspecting both closely.....I didn't see and gaps/tears/breaks in the head gaskets. ( I did not seal the gaskets with any type of spray on sealer - copper or paint)
The gaskets were the blue Fel-pro that came in an engine set.
Intake Gasket: The intake gaskets were the thin "tin" ones. A buddy of mine suggested to use the Felpro 340 composite gaskets. He said the metal were leak prone. The metal intake gaskets got hi-tak around the intake ports and RTV around the crossovers.
Pistons: the engine was rebuilt, and had +.020 pistons. Kids were cleaning them and dropped 1 on the floor, breaking off the skirt. I couldn't find a matching piston, so we bought a set of 8 with rings. We honed the cylinders, and its all looked pretty good.
Timing Cover: The original 273 timing cover was used with RTV and a gasket. If I recall, the bottom corner bolts for the cover need to be short. If its long, it will punch though the water jacket into the cylinder bore.
ROYAL FLUSH! Manual flushing today. removed the oil filter and added 10 qts of oil(walmarts best! $11 for 5 qts) ! I wanted the crankshaft swimming in oil. I rotated the crank by hand, maybe 10 complete revolutions. Next I pulled the oil pump drive and installed my priming tool. I rotated the oil pump and pushed a bunch of milkshakes out the oil filter head. Next, I installed a filter and turned the oil pump again, and I saw the oil pushing up through the lifters. I then rotated the crank a few more times and them primed it again. The goal was to splash as much oil as possible around and push fresh oil into all the bearings. I then pour another qt or two over the valley, and left it to drain down to the pan. I left it to sit for 30 min or so.......then drained the oil pan. It looked much better, not perfect, but alot better. I just didn't want the antifreeze to sit against the bearing or in the passages.
Now I'm ok with letting the engine sit until I figure out how to proceed. The intake I used was a "used" performer.
I'm thinking about getting another intake, to eliminate that source.