your not getting pistons in from the bottom, your loose rod has nothing to do with it firing you have to look into that its a separate issue with either the coil, injector, plug or wire

was the cylinders that was not firing wet with fuel or dry? if they was wet with fuel you have a problem with the coil, plug or wire "if" dry probably the injectors, clog fuel rail or injector wiring

 

It was wet and the oil was full of fuel.

Dammit you think I can't get one piston slid back into the block from the bottom?? this is upsetting news lol

 

Well,

If there are any positives to be said,

It doesn’t look like a tuning issue, yet.

 

lol...

 

What head gasket? I used ls9 and ended up pulling the heads and reusing the same gaskets. I hope that's not a no-no.

 

I used the ac Delco LS2 gaskets. I don’t know looks like I over paid for mine they are priced lower now.

I already had to pull heads off during assembly because I forgot to install the bolt that holds lifter trays in place.

 

Typically a no-no but a lot of guys do it, same with TTY head bolts.

Personally, I wouldn't do it because I have crappy luck.

 

I would pull the heads. MLS gaskets are absolutely fine to reuse and I have done it many times. If it makes you feel better you can spray some copper high tack on both sides but it's unnecessary. Clean and dry and away they will go... Like the for the nay sayers it's literally flat layers of steel and so long as they are not damaged or deformed there is no problem taking them off.

Good call seeing you get a rod and a crank.... there is no point for forged stuff unless this is some max effort turbo build.

Just triple check your work this time and you should be fine!

 

I agree with reusing mls headgasket. As long as the sealing materials aren’t flaking off it will be just fine. It sounds like it was ran for a pretty short time so that makes it even better. I can’t work on **** when its hectic, I will tell people to **** off if I’m in the middle of doing something that requires concentration and that’s why I usually get allot of my work done in the late evenings when no one bugs me. Luckily my wife and kids don’t like coming out side because the cold but I don’t mind the peace and quiet lol.

 

This explains how you get so much work done so quickly!

When I reused the LS9s the motor had never been run and the gaskets looked brand new still. Those MLS gaskets are sharp! I sliced the crap out of my hand trying to get them off the ARP stud once.