Thanks for responses. I have an adjustable pushrod, I remember now setting up the rockers on my Pontiac to get the contact point of the roller on the valve tip centered to get the correct length pushrod.

I contacted Trickflow on gasket recommendation and re-torqueing the head. I looked at several posts on doing this and don't see anything that says you have to loosen everything connected to the head before retorqueing, just do one bolt at a time. I'll follow up if they have anything interesting to say.

 

Well, here's the thing. Off hand, I don't remember the exact location of which head bolts, but some are under a rocker arm.
So, those arms will not have to be removed, but loosened and moved to the side. So then valve-lash has to be reset again.
That's why I said it's a pain to retorque head bolts.

Most of the bottom row of head bolts will have access with a socket / extension. But again, some will be under a header pipe.
So the entire header has to be loosened or backed off.

Never use a swivel or universal to torque head bolts. Never.

 

I used the felpro steel shim .015" head gaskets on both of my aluminum to cast iron block builds. Just used some copper coat to assure sealing. No re-torquing and never a leak either. The only prep I did to the block was to clean it good and check for flatness.
If your block is stock deck height then the stock pistons should reside .025" in the hole at TDC.

 

Are MLS head gaskets the best practice for Gen 1 SBCs now? They certainly are for LS engines (aluminum heads, and both iron and aluminum blocks).

 

The machinist who did my L355 roller shortblock said that was the case. Only use a shim if you need to get thinner that what an MLS can get you, or if you are on an extreme budget. You can get 2-3 sets of shim gaskets for the cost of one good MLS. Most MLS gaskets go down only to .027" or .028". A shim can get you down to .015". I went with Cometic MLS gaskets on my decked block and new TF DHC 175 heads.

 

That's the ticket. .025" in the hole stock deck height plus .015" shim head gasket gets you an ideal .040" squish...assuming flat top or D-dish pistons are used. If they are stock full dish pistons the effect is mostly nullified due to lack of a quench pad.