blown 2 head gaskets

Here's some food for thought: Here's a pic of my pair of blown head gaskets. They blew during a run down my local 1/8 mile track (went 8.2 sec), first and only run; brand new engine: 360, .030 over KB-107 pistons, ported "J" heads, M1 intake, 12+ compression ratio. Had to push the car up on the trailer, didn't run any more:cry:.

This happened in 2006. I spent more than 2 years trying to figure out what happened. I asked dozens of people if they had a clue, mailed the gaskets out to be looked over by a learned professional. Many said "i don't know", lot's said "detonation", a couple said ".. head bolts bottoming out in the block", two suggested "possible head lift". I let all of this rattle around in my head, checked bolt engagement in the block five times; during build .020 was talken off block, .035 taken off heads. With the heads off saw no signs of detonation, I could still read what I wrote on the crowns during moch up, figured that detonation that violent would have shattered a piston; hypers are strong, but they are brittle. Looking at the block after the intake was off, the film of RTV I used (high temp red) to seal the ends of the intake was transparent to the block and thinner than a piece of paper. I asked more people about head lift, they didn't think that an aluminum manifold with 6 3/8 inch bolts could pull against an iron head held down with 10 1/2 inch bolts. After a while I remembered something I read decades ago in "Ripplies Believe it or not".......a fly landing on a 1 inch dia solid steel bar will cause a measurable deflection. Is the deflection significant...........no! It is, measurable! I only remembered it because it seems so improbable. Score a point for head lift!

There was another factor in all of this, the chambers that blew also were slightly lighter color than the others. After I cleaned up the engine from all the gasket debris, I put new gaskets in; Cometics; screwed it together and fired it up........steam and water pouring out of the headers, blaim the gaskets, install another set; Mr Gasket, Ultra seal, never fired it had water coming out of #4 spark plug hole, tear the heads off, took them to a shop for inspection, passed a magniflux, close visual inspection with a jewlers loop found a spot in the intake bowl, the guy took a scribe an pushed it thru the wall of the bowl like he was going thru tissue paper saying " I think I found your problem.........."

After all of this I concluded: clamp on the head gasket was reduced by the intake bottoming out on the end rails of the block, water entered the cylinders, during combustion the water turned to steam, created caused a rapid sharp pressure spike, blew the gaskets out.

Just some thing to think about.

Good luck