First post, please be gentle

Engine is '71 FE 360 with an Edelbrock intake manifold/carb.

I had a waterjacket breach, wasn't overheating at the time, but apparently the heads were trash and finally failed. I pulled the heads and took them to the machine shop where they said they were full of cracks. I got a pair of rebuilt heads and put it all back together, drained and replaced the old water and oil and fired it up. Ran fine for a bit, but I found that I once again had water in the oil (milky foam on the oil dipstick.)

Now, I'm new to this motor. Assuming that the heads are ok (new gaskets, torqued to spec in sequence, 70-80-90) what are the possibilities for that kind of a leak? I'm assuming the ports on either end of the intake manifold are water channels, correct? Is that a reasonable area to suspect? How likely is it that the problem is in the bottom end (again, no overheating at the time of failure)? Is there a trick to making sure the I/M seals to the heads (manifold bolts were torqued to 35 ft/lbs using a center out sequence), or will a good gasket sealent do the trick?

Thanks for any info.

 

i would post this in the engine forum. more people who know well see it there.
gl
mark

 

I've got the same issue with my 390. I've been told it's either head gaskets, intake gaskets or a cracked block...I have not ripped into mine yet, but that is what I have been told.

 

just a peice of input here, when i put together my 390, i had the heads welded and resurfaced, the block deck, new gaskets (mr. gasket), and arp studs. Leaked right after cam break-in. Went back to the machine shop with the heads and block, rechecked any they said it was fine. They recomended victor jr gaskets instead, tried those lasted about 200mi, blew out between cylender and valley. At this point im getting worked up. one guy said try the fel-pro permatorque, not a problem since. only about 10 to 1 comp natural aspiration, did nothing else and it worked great. Give the fel-pro a shot, i didn't think it would "fix" my problem but it did.

 

Thanks for the replies. I finally got my hands on an engine rebuild manual and I believe I know what went wrong in my assembly process. We'll see once I finish up and actually start it.