273 copper head gaskets SCE

Things I'd do first to prep any old seasoned block that I was going to hotrod up some. Besides reboring that is.

• I'd square deck the block. You may find the decks are far out of square to the crank and not as flat as you think too. So....
• I'd mill the heads.
• Make sure the alignment dowel pin holes are not half drilled or filled with crud. I found this on a 273 once. The heads dowel hole in the head was staggered/galled and the dowel would bottom before the head would clamp down.
• I'd chase the threads with a "NEW" sharp tap of good quality HSS Steel. Not the old tap laying in the bottom of the tool box for the last 25 years.
• Use ARP head bolts with their Moly lube.

So many 273's and 318's I have done, I'd never use a 340/360 head gasket. Even at 11:1 ratio I never had one fail using the OEM 318 gaskets if the prep was done well.

To me, the story reads like the PREP work was lackadaisical. The photo's in post #34 kind of show this as the heads were not clamped down on the 2 bores.

And a question for stroker 402, Why ask for help and then RED X posts #7 and #9??? You will tend not to get any more help if you do this.