DART SHP 200 cylinder heads leaking oil.

[Ole Beater]

Finally got my engine together after three years and started it for break in. After running it for a few minutes it stared leaking oil from my passenger side valve cover down onto my drive way. I looked at the valve cover and it was slightly misaligned and this is what i found.

[Ole Beater]

OOps, forgot the pictures.

[Ole Beater]

BTW, the unfortunate part is that I bought these heads 3 yrs ago and DART will not recognize a warranty, nor Summit. I don't much blame them but wish I had paid a lot closer attention to them when purchased. And thats the moral of the story.

[chevy2tom]

Damn!

[cleszkie]

What am I looking for? Is it the big dent/flaw in the head on the valve cover mating surface, the misaligned bolt holes or something else? At least its not cracked. The flaw can be built up and machined down. You will have to modify your valve cover to work with the misaligned bolt holes.

[Ole Beater]

Its the misaligned bolt holes. The valve cover barely pinched the edge of the gasket on the exhaust side and caused it to squeeze into the cover. The dent isnt actually as bad as it looks. I dont see how to modify the valve cover so I will be ordering center bolt valve covers.