I'm using the Fel Pro 1003

http://www.chevyhiperformance.com/techarticles/90678/

The instructions say to drill out that center hole prior to engine assembly. My machine shop chose that head gasket since I'm running higher compression, I told them I had head seepage when I took the engine apart, They didn't drill the hole for me, and they didnt' say anything about it. The gasket covers half the instructions, so I couldn't read it prior to opening the package.

The bottom end is built, the freeze plugs are in. WTF. Can I just run the gasket w/o drilling the center hole out of my block? Can I drill out the "B" holes in the gasket back to stock size and forget about the the center passage?

The frustrations never end.

 

Drill the holes, at least to the size of the gasket holes, with a good strong vacuum cleaner to pick up the chips. Duct tape and newspaper over anything you can. A few chips won't hurt anything in the cooling system, they'll just turn to rust in short order.

The hottest place in a SBC is the top of the head, in the center, between those 2 joined exhaust ports. That hole is designed to help that. The other holes in teh gasket are slightly smaller to force more coolant to go through the center holes.

 

Glad to hear it, now that won't be burning a hole in my head all day at work tomorrow. Your the bringing of good news RB.

 

hmm.. 1003felpros.. that's what I just picked up today to replace the felpro 7733pt2's. I had a leak and it looks like failed gasket. I hope the new ones just go on the same way.

 

Is that "Hot Spot" the reason my valve cover gasket looks like it cought on fire in that area? I replaced my Timing chain a week ago, and when I took off the valve covers to paint them, there was a 2-3" section in the gasket on the passeneger side that was completely black and burnt up. The rest of the gasket was perfect!!

 

possible failure of the intake gasket causing the EGR gasses to burn the gasket? how does the intake gasket look between the number 4 and 6 cylinders?