3.5 iffy block joys

Not having much luck with my 3.5 first one had fire rings burnt into the block badly and lump I have now (free) has minor fire ring marks.

What concerns me is the liner has a taper and as far as I can see it feels like a very slight lip(possible slipped liner) the plugs were not rusty and there is no sign of steam cleaning.

I bought a complete head set with composite gaskets and two tin gaskets (99p each) so to slap it back together is £110 with skim.

Looking at the composite gasket I have concerns that the fire ring may not seat correctly(placed on block) and 0.6 drop in compression.
So I've opted for the tin gaskets as the crush down fire ring area is larger (moved further away from liner).
Though I'm aware composite generally preferred on used blocks

The joy of needing a core plug (under inlet manifold and the steel pipe) mean I can't run it yet.
Compression test shows 150psi approx all cylinders with tin gaskets


Anyone else been in this situation, did you end up buying a new short engine? or get away with it?

The composite gaskets are better after a skim, they stop the CR getting too high and are a better sealer in my view. We used them on a new short engine rebuild back in May of this year.

Do you have the 14-bolt heads or the 10-bolt?

Peter

14 bolt and the outside row torqued to 30nm or about 25lbft as per rpi suggestion
compression ratio should be okay as 9.35 and even with skim should be no where near 10.5 I estimate 9.35-9.95 worse case

150 psi with a cold engine sounds good to me as that figure was the minimum acceptable on a hot/open throttle test. My last 3.5efi gave an average of 165 during those conditions & that had done 151k at the time. As far as I know 3.5's are not known for liner problems.

i would remove and throw the outer row or head bolts away as stated 3.5 does not suffer linner issues.
as the engine was designed to run with tin gaskets stick with these as the comp ones lower the comp and unless you have had 3-4 mm skimmed off they would only restore to original comp ratio

Thanks, I'm hoping it will behave-if it doesn't then I'll dump either an efi lump in or 3.9 running mega squirt or similar.

What I don't want to do is invest vast sums in a pile of ****e- when I have 6000 trouble free miles out of it then I'll consider a cam/vernier gears/duplex chain and roller rockers

The only thing I will say on the subject of head-gaskets is that comp. gaskets were used on my 3.5efi without any head-skimming & there was no noticeable difference in performance during normal driving. They are more durable & the slight reduction in CR means the engine won't 'pink/ping' on standard un-leaded, as the 9.35 comp. engines were designed for 97 octane.

found another 3.5 lump (sd1 so if mine plays up I'll rebuild that)