Head seal- aluminum block

[Larrygo]

Problems keeping seal on my big chief heads sealed to my donovan block, Tried copper with O rings and MLS gasgets but alwas seem to fail after about 50 passes. This is a N/A high 7 sec car. Are these blocks amaintanance piece? Any sugestions. Thanks. Motor is a 632ci.

[bjuice]

I got the same set up with no issues...copper head gaskets o-ringed...NO LEAKS....did you use any sealer around the head studs ? have you tried Haylomar on your head gaskets.

How bad is your leak ?...if the above don't stop it I would have to get the block decking checked out along with the heads the next teardown.

jmo

[zipper06]

:?: Do you have reciever grooves in the heads, i know that O'rings donot work well with over .060 copper gaskets, and they have to be retorqued after 15 to 20 passes. I've ran KB blocks blown alcohol that's what i had to do, but i've never ran a Donovan blk.


JMO

Zip.

[roadkill2]

Geez, I thought "Re-torquing" heads on any aluminum engine /head combo was just weekly maintenance if you're running high compression and leaning on it.

Currently, we re-torque the Darts on the cast iron BBC about every 30 runs . . Just one of those things you do (I think) . . .

[bjuice]

Geez, I thought "Re-torquing" heads on any aluminum engine /head combo was just weekly maintenance if you're running high compression and leaning on it.

Currently, we re-torque the Darts on the cast iron BBC about every 30 runs . . Just one of those things you do (I think) . . .

always a good practice...also what Zip said about receiver grooves in the heads...this will really cause the wire to bite into the copper headgasket !

[Larrygo]

Thanks for replies, block and heads have been resurfaced. took O rings out when re-sleaving it,the sleaves are machined flat with block. They were proud .002 with 0 rings. Im trying MLS gasket and re torqued after 1st cool down.Never triied Halomar and re-torque exta times. Hope this works. Any one else with the same combo would like to here from you Thanks Larry.