dman0712

just got done rebuilding an olds 403 for my trans am. the engine only has ran for about a total of 30 minutes and has never even been up yo operating temp. i have noticed the oil seems to have water in it. Now mind you this motor has a very healthy cam and 10:1 compression so cranking compression will obviously be lower than a stock motor. I did a compression test cold 137 125 135 110 engine
137 121 123 110 front
The front cylinders seem a little low but it seems to equal across the cylinders to me to be a head gasket. The engine doesnt smoke really either. could these reading be because the rings arent broken in yet and the engine isnt warm? The engine had no external leaks but im redoing the intake gasket and timing cover gasket because my stupid *** didnt rtv around any water ports. could it be leaking internally possibly? when i pulled off the intake i noticed it was milky inside by oil returns. all surfaces had just been machined and i used an .011 coated stainless steel head gasket from smitty and mj performance. This time around i wont be using the rubber intake end rails because the intake was machined down and il just dimple the end rails and use rtv. any ideas where else i could have an internal leak?

cutlassefi

Could be leaking from the ends of the intake into the valley or between the front plate and the block. Don't use too much RTV, that can make it leak too.
Warm the engine and take another compresson test, imo those 2 110's especially are a bit of a concern as compared to the rest.