On a 383 tear down I noticed that the head gasket was a little cooked between the adjoining cylinders. Can one drill the steam holes found on 400s and get effective cooling from this mod?

 

Drilling the head wouldnt do anything since the block doesnt have the same passages.

 

Guess I should of expanded more. I would drill out the block and heads to match the 400 head gasket. This shouldn't affect overall cooling since this mod works on 400s.

 

Though i don't know the deffinate answer to your question, i can add some info here.

400s have so much cylinder inside a regular sized small block that there is no room for the regular coolant passages between the middle two cylinders in each bank like all other small blocks have. That's why the steam holes are there. Its to try make up for the lack of coolant passages. So, steam holes are actually worse than the passages you already have. they're a band aid for the 400.

 

Theres no reason you should have to drill holes like a 400. If you have cooling problmes look for the culpret.

as jay said only reason 400's have em is because of the simeesed cylinders.

 

Thanks for the posts/thoughts.

Between a drag car engine and the 383 that I tore down, the head gasket looks worst between 3-5 and 4-6 on both engines. The gaskets are not ready to fail, but the discoloration on both engines make me a little concerned.

I have an '88 Daytona and the turbo wore out. Long story short - you gotta remove the cylinder head to get the turbo off. That engine had cooling passages between adjoining cylinders and the gasket looked great.

So if one where to add the steam holes like a 400 has, the passages should pull heat away from the adjoining cylinders. Also the air pocket being held in by the siamese cylinders is released by the steams holes.

 

Well, I've considered the same thing… I got some answers from a source I trust that it will work well, but I haven't tried it yet.

As far as 400/cluge thoughts… not exactly. The issue is that the coolant can't flow between the cylinders so that without the steam holes you end up with a pocket of air that you can't get rid of which will cause hot spots. It's not that there is insufficient cooling passages, it's that without some way for the coolant to pass between areas you'll never get the coolant to where it needs to go.