Boy am I dumb. Always think simple. Words to live by. I should pay attention to my own words. This is the 3rd pair of Cometics I've used in this motor. Never had an issue before. Pulled the heads trimmed the gaskets. Clamped the gaskets between two pieces of wood and cut off the excess. Deburred all 5 layers. The stainless center layer is tough. The piece I cut off looked symmetrical. Humm? Cleaned off the RTV from the valley plate. Relubed all the studs. Reinstalled and torqued the heads. Number 5 pushrod still looked odd. upon looking further I see the issue. The motor has off set cups in the intake lifters. I had the #5 lifter pair rotated around with the exhaust and intake lifters swapped. Getting old. Should have investigated further. Anyway is all together except the pan and oil pump.
Doug