Well I took out the Buick for one last run two weekends ago at Edgewater trying to get my 11 sec pass. On the second run, it blew a head gasket. After tearing the heads off, and inspecting everything, I found the drivers side head gasket pushed into the water jacket on the #1 cyl. The plug in that cyl also was burnt. It looks to me like detonation, but I never heard it ping. I have no idea where the timing is in degrees. Basically I run it until I get a lil noise out of it and bump it back. I'm running an HEI with a curve kit, a proform kit (coil, modual, ect), accel 8mm wires, and delco r45ts gapped at .035. It ran great at Salem running a best of 12.12. The head gaskets where felpro blues. The motor is new this year, block and heads decked. I'm running arp head studs. Iron block, 69 430 heads. Calculated static CR is 9.7:1 Another thing I noticed was a couple of dings in the pistons on the exhaust side where the valve had hit the piston. It is a very little ding but visable. The block was decked .014 on one side and .018 on the other to make it an even 10.545" deck height on each side. The heads where just surfaced enough to clean the surface. It is a 413 cam, with stock rockers. The heads where cut for stage1 valves. The pistons are speed-pro forged. The ding is right where the dish of the piston comes up to the top of the piston. I only found this on 2 cyl (3,7). I figured it could have happened when I got the motor up to around 6250... I really dont know. There is no markings on the valves at all. I think I just need a way to knotch the pistons just slightly. Any good/easy ways? I thinking about going with TA's orange gaskets... I know there is more in the motor, I think I'm going to do some more work on these heads. Basically all I did to the heads was clean up the intake, lay back the short radius, and open the bowls for the valves. The chambers are untouched. The car I know is heavy, has to be close to 3800lbs. 12.12 @ 105 so far. Other mods, SP1 750 holley w/ proform main body ( I think this is first thing to go) Holley Black Pump reg down to 7.5 psi 1/2" line from cell Ati super street fighter (stalls around 3500 on brake) 3.90s out back 60's mid 1.6's Everything else looks great. Few Pix...
