360 water passageways
As said....no coolant through the back.
The idea is ..coolant flow into front of block.. through block to rear of block and up to the heads and through to the front and through the cross over and out the top hose/thermostat housing.
An upward u turn with a few smaller passages along the way to cool the hot spots... but not big enough to disrupt the flow through to the back, up forward and out the front of the heads.
Black, grey rtv is to be used...or copper if that's all you have.
Red/copper is for Exhaust. Blue is useless..."for water pumps" I use black or grey on everything and copper on header gaskets. If I'm feeling fancy I'll use some permatack or gasketcinch...even copper coat for reusing cometics/mls