the hemi that is running hot all the time...i tore into the hemi today, as my previous post was all with visual inspection, come to find out it is an all aluminum engine,painted . with a solid roller cam(unknown specs.) the past life is unknown.. i cut the filter, it looks good, no metal
i did a comp test all real similar..120ish 1st pump 145ish 3rd pump . i did a leak down and it ranged from 38-44% on a warm engine. when idling smoke puffs from both breathers and dip stick tube, i let it idle until the t-stat opened 180 then let it cool a bit before leak down, so if this was your hemi.. what would you do next

Take it apart & fix it.

Since it’s together and running, I’d make as sure as I could the cooling system was functioning correctly before I started tearing stuff apart.

So you need to find out more about this motor. What are the ring gaps, whos rings, who built the motor. I would not tear the motor down till you research who built the motor and then some history about the motor, someone has to know something. 38-44% leak down, I wonder if there is a ring or block problem or both and it was cause by the over heating of the motor. I have never run a motor that hot. Those idiot lights for oil pressure and temperature would of been a good thing to use and when the big red or blue light comes on see what was happening in the beginning.

My World aluminum block required a head gasket that had different coolant holes on the bottom row. I got the correct part no. From Rich Nedbal AKA Mopar Rich. I had to order them from Cometic.

Mark

Sounds like the KB gaskets also. The KB block has the outer row of steam holes relocated away from the bore requiring a special head gasket and relocating the holes in the heads.

I had a head gasket sealing problem with the only KB street hemi block I assembled for a customer due to the sleeve height being to high at first and then those dang cooling water holes being so close the sleeves in the block
I ended up having to take the block and heads to SCE gasket company in Lancaster, CA to have them make me some copper head gaskets that would work properly
All the other head gaskets I had bought and tried where for the race KB blocks, not the street block