(Most of this saga has been chasing an
oil usage issue. His intake was a Dove piece that had been heavily ported by Keith Craft (both the intake and cylinder heads were reused from a previous engine). It had porosity issues and in David's own words, he thought it was structurally flimsy. Most FE
oil usage cases can be nailed down to intake manifold/gasket problems but most guys aren't mechanically inclined enough or willing enough to do the work themselves. In the matter of knocking out the easy explanations first, I sent David a replacement set of valve seals as well as some
oil restricting pushrods just to try. It didn't solve the problem so instead of bringing the engine 12 hours back to me, we agreed that he would do an intake gasket swap. It was at the end of 2 gasket swaps that he made the above comments about his intake manifold and wanted to look for another. It had even showed some pin hole leaks when he pressure tested it.)
Brent questions if I may,
So who built this engine? You or Keith Craft? this part of your post makes it sound like you are distancing your self, Did the heads get rebuilt? by whom?
(You make it sound like they where the old heads just thrown on) did the heads get updated to handle the cam, springs rockers etc, valves, new, old? heads, crack tested? pressure tested?
Did you test intake fit? pressure test?, knowing it's a Dove part and had been heavily ported by Keith Craft.
I do think David should have sent the engine back to you, I also believe you would have stood behind your work, sorry to both parties, but please be clear for us that do find this interesting.