Head Gasket Question/Problem

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71Demon340

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I bought a SB Fel-Pro gasket kit that came with the 8553PT gasket. I know they are the cheap ones and I'm probably going to order different ones. But I was placing them on the block and the gasket blocks off at least one of the coolant holes in the block and one of the oil holes. I was wondering if this is normal. I think the way I had them, it blocked the top front coolant hole and one of the rear oil holes on both sides of the block. This is a 71 340 block with X-heads. Seems like Ma-Mopar put all those holes there for a reason. Thanks.
 
yes its normal. becouse the is no right or left side only head gasket.
theirs only one oil feed hole per side that feeds oil to the rockers.
 

hi, did you have dowel pins in block when you installed head gaskets?
if so, then gaskets only go one way. same way about coolant passages. the oil to rockers feeds from left front and right rear to heads. the 8553 gasket is a good gasket, I've used them om 340 race motors had no problems at all.
 
perfacar said:
hi, did you have dowel pins in block when you installed head gaskets?
if so, then gaskets only go one way. same way about coolant passages. the oil to rockers feeds from left front and right rear to heads. the 8553 gasket is a good gasket, I've used them om 340 race motors had no problems at all.
Click to expand...

Yes, dowel pins are in the block. Yes, gaskets only go one way. Still covers some of the holes in deck and heads. Do the coolant passages in the block and head flow in a certain direction like the oil passages or are they all connected and just flow up thru heads and to intake. If they are all connected then it shouldn't matter. Still doesn't make sense that some of the holes are covered by the gasket. Even if the gasket were able to be flipped, it would still cover the opposite coolant hole.
 
Place gaskets so that the coolant holes in it are at the rear of the block on both sides. So one gasket will have to be turned over for the open coolant hole to face the rear of the block. Wedgehead
 
If the large coolant passages are blocked up in the front of the engine that is a good thing. You don't want coolant coming into the block, going up into the front hole, and right back to the thermastat without circulating. The Felpro 1008 head gaskets I just installed had the front coolant passages blocked.
 
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