Stay positive. I applaud your feed back on suggestions all have made. Often without this feedback we as fellow members never learn anything either. In the end a synopsis will help us all. Good Luck.

I know it will work out because I'll be hunched over it with tools until it is. :)

I have it mostly back together, just need to get my gaskets from Stainless Marine. Should have it running again sometime next week and will report back.

Russ

I had a wet exhaust problem with my 10:1 383 SBC and that cam.
It finally went away when I moved my adjustable roller chain cam gear from 4 degrees retarded to straight up. I also did a Davis Ignition, more timing, surfaced my heads and did head gaskets at that time. I was able to put in a lot more base timing since my 22 degree DUI ignition needed 13 degrees base to get 35 all in. My prior Mercruiser ignition had 8 degrees base.
This was my first engine from scratch though, so I could easily have caused the leaks from the heads. The first gaskets were .015" shims that I put on dry with new heads and never retorqued. When they failed I did Cometic MLS gaskets which also did not seal. I bet the heads were already imperfect from the first fail. I was too stupid to show my heads to my machinist.
By the time I went to do the 3rd set of HG's I pulled the engine to do some plumbing for my remote oil filter, and while it was out I checked and found that I had mis-set the cam gear because I hadn't understood the symbols that indicate position.
So to recap. Cam went to straight up. New steel shim gaskets with copper spray coat on resurfaced heads. Retorqued them after a minor heat cycle. New ignition, More timing.
It ran fine after that, but 3 season of issues had me questioning myself a lot.

I assume you used the RTV that Stainless Marine provides on BOTH sides of the riser gaskets?

Just given the OP's throughal work and build/pics I would have to say neither RTV nor instructions came with. I could very well wrong though. If new into offshore mods etc the importance of might not have come to mind during install. Regardless rather inexpensive experience and piece of mind to catch before potentially what could have been catastrophic.

I have the roller version of that cam in a 9.5 to 1 385" SBC. It idles at 650-700 with no reversion. When I purchased and installed the Stainless Marine exhaust the instructions were emphatic about using the RTV at the riser gaskets to stop reversion.

Stainless marine exhaust has a gap/space where the riser meets the manifold, between inner and outer jackets???

I did not use the RTV on the exhaust gaskets. Either there were no instructions that came with it or they got thrown away while I was cleaning up.

A number of people have mentioned this and I since I didn't find anything else wrong, I bet this was the problem.

I'll know tomorrow.

Thanks again for the all the responses.

Russ

Directions.... Who reads those??? A yellow important warning sticker on top of manifold that says please read instructions might get ones attention. I tend to over use rtv even on machined surfaces. Just an old habit.

Regardless no harm done and no down time.

Got it back together and ran it today. I used permatex ultra copper gasket maker on both sides of the riser gaskets and tightened the snot out the band clamp.

Only ran it for 5 minutes and still have some water in my manifolds. Pictures attached. Still seemed to run quite well.

I put new plugs in before running this time and after running for about 5 minutes, they are all still damn near new looking. Shouldn't they get dark pretty quick? There is one plug in the picture that is dark and that is because that is an old one. Somehow when I got home from the auto parts store I only had 7 new ones.

After the last time I ran this engine and had a lot of water, I pulled the plugs and they each had a small area of dark and the rest appeared clean. I assumed that this was because of the water coming in from the manifolds.


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...3c410d7439.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...df9ecbdc0c.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...a91e00307e.jpg

As a recap, since the last time I ran this engine and had a lot of water in the manifolds including a milkshake in my oil pan, I removed the heads and replaced the head gaskets, replaced the intake manifold gasket and also double checked the cam timing (it was right on). I also used silicone sealant on the riser gaskets this time which I had not done last time. I also set the idle to 750 this time around.


I need a beer.