Gasket material in cylinder

[pablon2]

I am replacing headgaskets on a newly acquired SC engine :) and have had a hard time keeping the gasket material from dropping into the cylinders during cleaning (despite a towel in the cylinders). My question is this....Is it fine to put some air to it to blow it out or just let it go and assume it'll burn up and head out the exhaust? I'm hesitant to hit it with air as it might force it between the rings. As far as I know it shouldn't matter anyway since it is not metal (no fire ring material). Took me 2 hours to remove all the gasket material from the block.....perhaps a tad meticulous?

[David Neibert]

Wet/dry shop vac works great for cleaning the cylinders and gasket material that gets into the lifter valley. I usually wipe/spray the bores down with brake cleaner, vacuum them followed by a light coating of WD40 to prevent rust.

David

[pablon2]

Sounds like a plan David. The engine never blew its HGs so I don't plan to do anything to the heads other than bolt them back on. Do I have to worry about rocker geometry/lifter preload if I am just putting Fel-Pro PermaTorque gaskets on? I imagine the compressed thickness should be the same as OEM.

[DamonSlowpokeBaumann]

Dont worry about that...Bolt em on and go!