Originally Posted by KevinEF7

Oh ya he called you and told you he left that there?

Originally Posted by blackeg

ok so it was the headgasket huh? what torque and steps/sequence was it installed with? were the block and head resurfaced? with compression into the 12's do you have a good amount of ignition timing removed especially low rpm and moderate to high load?

Originally Posted by HiProfile

You DO NOT use a multi-step torque sequence with head bolts. ARP engineers have repeatedly told people to get them no more than hand tight (first the stud, then the nut), then crank it to the HONDA-SPEC. No number of idiots posting their tricks on forums should change that sequence or the final torque value. As far as breaking in the rings, you have to understand what you're trying to do. You're trying to seat the rings, meaning trying to lightly wear them down to seal fully. If you had any moly-based assembly lube in the cylinders or ringpacks, you probably need a new hone & rings. If you *****-foot around while driving and think vacuum decel is the answer, again, you may need new rings. The goal for seating rings is to apply maximum pressure to them while keeping speeds low. Several near-WOT pulls, each time decelerating lightly. High RPM can induce chatter and ruin the seating process, low load (high vacuum from decel or idle) pulls the rings into the pistons and slows the seating process. If you also ran it rich as ****, you also washed down the rings and will need new rings. There is a reason nearly all race motors are broken in on the dyno. If idling or high-vac was the solution for break-in, they'd pull them outside and idle & blip the throttle non-stop for hours. If compression numbers haven't got worse, you probably haven't seated some rings yet. Find out what high-load break-in method will work best for your roads, do it, then check compressioin, and repeat a few times if needed. If the numbers don't change, you can have excessive blow-by that will lead to early oil contamination until you re-ring it.