How can I find the cooling passages in the heads? How do I know which ones are the cooling passages. Some of the cooling passages have bolts going through them. This is a 455cu in Buick motor that's going in my third gen.

 

I've never seen the inside of that engine, but you can just look into the ports and the ones that you can't see the tops of valves in will be coolant passages. It'll also be fairly obvious if the engine has some miles on it, since only air flows through the ports(and gas).. and the coolant passages will most likely be dirty and still have traces of coolant in them. Most likely one on the front and one in the rear of each head.

 

455 Buick! i used to be into buicks, torque monsters.they did a spread in carcraft afew years back when a guy put one ina transam. don't remember the particulars but don't they have main bearing problems? don't you have to reroute the oil to the mains. i may be wrong but my conscience makes me bring it up. oh and save your money for parts