I took SNKVNNM for a quick ride last week and I've been noticing some coolant puddling. After parking. At first I thought it was from the hose connected to the water pump as I usually have 2 clamps and 1 was missing! But even after that, the puddling occurs again, but it appears to be only the left side, and now I'm seeing some drops of
oil as well. This points to the cylinder head. I've already retorqued them back in August and this stopped for a couple of months but now, it's back and I think the studs have stretched beyond their useful life.
Just for a background: for the last 8 years, I've used the same head studs that were bought 'used' when I first started this project in 2003 (the year I was going down the path of a budget build); it came with a used set of Edelbrock Performer RPM's (that had needed new valve seals) and some CompCam roller rockers. A few of those studs had some indications of pitting but I didn't think it was that serious but knowing they were used, I wasn't too sure of how many time they were torqued or worse, over torqued.
The problem has always been on the left side of the engine, but if I'm going through the trouble of replace these, I may as well do all of them.
So SNKVNNM will be offline for awhile.
Time to get online and order a new set of studs and head gaskets, intake gaskets and exhaust gaskets.