Disassembled my head finally and on 2 of the guides, I noticed this little gloppy looking spot. Oil seeping past?
Just some random buildup? It's a very small spot, and only 2 guides.

 

Or is it normal to see something like this? Intake side, and this is after roughly 3k miles under my current build. The runners and bowls are pret-ty friggin' clean otherwise.

 

Got the exhaust valves out and damn.. Those are really jacked. It appears the stem seals that I already knew were in need of replacement were evidently the exhaust seals. Lol! I'll get a pic of that up in a while. The bowls look caked up pretty rough with gunk and I cleaned the head pretty well when I put it all together in April. I'm surprised I got the results I did from this build. I CAN say though that I had noticed a difference, performancewise, over the past couple weeks before the piston issue.

 

 

There wasn't any real play in the valves, (and these are stock guides also. They were in this engine already, I did not put them in). Barely a noticeable jiggle. I DID notice that when removing the valves, I put my finger over the tip and down on the seal; the intake side had fair suction as I removed the valve and the exhaust side was muuuuch weaker suction. This tells me I was right in having bad seals for sure. The gunky exhaust is not going to be fun cleaning up but, I tackle that task tomorrow.