I'm a bit puzzled by all of this after your builder returned the motor to you. Being your original problem and the guy took care of it why in the world did you two not discuss and resolve this before you even put the motor back in? Builder seemed to be standup guy but yet you still have issues? Might want to step away for a few days and tackle it when you can think straight. BTDT. Good luck.

Pull the intake. The gaskets are cheap. Somethings wrong, your engine builder may have missed something. No one is perfect. At then you can take a look for yourself. Pay special attention to sealing surfaces and how are compressed, line up. Be careful not to damage gaskets, your going to need to take a close look at them. Check that intake for leaks too might thin wall somewhere. Then you can check and see if your heads are seated.

Cabin
 

BING!!!! I was just looking at my Valley pan. Do you have one? I had to modify the tabs on them so they wouldn't interfere with intake gaskets and intake manifolds. If a corner gets under or over the gasket anywhere it will prevent the manifold from sealing. Also need to make sure your gaskets will end up thicker than the valley pan. You don't need the pan in there, you can leave it out. They came in the factory blocks from mercruiser

To answer the questions

builder installed intake. I have not touched anything on this motor except bolt ons. It doesnt even have oil in it yet.

he told me it was fixed. I picked it up I took his word for it and dropped in boat. For what ever reason decided to pressure check again the other day. And that is where i am at.

We will be having a discussion about a few things. Im tired of playing boat mechanic.

You'll be able to see the pan through distributor hole or pushrod holes. He might have missed that. Aftermarket heads, different gaskets, ect.

Buy a boat they said. It would be fun they said.

We're rooting for ya, Cabin Fever!

I honestly dont know if it does or not. Mine is a bow tie block. Im hesitatnt to pull the intake only cause i dont want rhe liability if something happens down the road. But at this point i may have no choice.

Also not to sound like a dick but what should i have discussed with him? I brought him a screwed up motor that i had nothing to do with. He said it was fixed, apologized and said if i had issues to call him. In hindsight i guess i should have insisted he verify it was fixed but honestly i thought it would be common sense

hes not a shade tree mechanic by any means. I know plenty of people who swear by him. Hes a nice guy too so indont think hes the type to try to screw some over by any means.

Gonna try calling him now.

Good you brought this up. We have many threads on this. GM/Merc factory gaskets have the notch for these, but aftermarket intakes don't. Slight cutting of the intake gaskets and you are all set.

How could he know if it was all fixed with no oil in it? Which means it wasn't started and run. A call to the builder is definitely in order. Good luck.

Yea he didnt run it again. How ever its probably a good thing he didnt. I dont think its leaking bad enough yet to see an issue. It holds psi for a second and slowly drops back down. Im guessing 3 or 4 hours run tim id be back where i was.

Im "guessing" it probably would have had this issue tje very first time i picked it up but he actually ran it on the stand for me then (ran awesome). So we didnt check it

im starting to wonder if the heads were even the problem to start with.