Before the thermostat opens, the only water that circulates is through the heater hoses, so they will usually get hot before the radiator hoses. Once the engine temp reaches T stat temp, the stat will open, and the radiator hoses will also heat up, and sometimes when that occurs, the heater hoses cool slightly.
If your engine is running hot (like idling in the garage) it might be heating up faster than when it would be on the road, and might also be getting hotter than normal driving conditions.
The glowing header could be contributed to by the carburetor, so hopefully the tap on it helped whatever was stuck? If you continue to have issues with idle, and dying in gear, you might eventually spring for a new carb, if this one just can't be fixed. 2.5 turns out seems awfully rich from the few Edelbrock carbs I've played with. Seemed like most were closer to 1.5 turns to get best mixture at idle. I'd try to adjust each screw 1/8-1/4 turn at a time (in) until the engine begins to react. Be sure to do each screw the same amount, before moving back and forth.

 

I'm pulling the top of this carb off tomorrow. Already have the old needles/seats dug back out. I remember back when I had taken the carb back off and took it apart, twice. I made a comment about one of the needles wanting to stick a little bit but would eventually fall down. I just figured that it was due to being dry, ironically it was on that side of the carb. I should've never messed with this thing in the first place, it was only a few months old. Just wanted to make sure everything was new/clean when I installed this engine, no other reason for doing the rebuild. I'll probably end up with a new carb next summer, just have a hard time thinking this carb can't be fixed when it wasn't broken to begin with.


I just walked back in from the garage again. I let the car sit close to 3 hours and when I went to start it, it was completely flooded out. Took forever to get it going and again, glowing header tubes! Also, I took the cap off the radiator and every time I start the engine up, within one minute water is bubbling out (bad) and all over everything. The water isn't very hot that's coming out either. Just seems like the engine is getting really hot, really fast. Valve covers are hot after a couple minutes of running too. I'm not talking about 20 minutes of running, more like 3. I did turn the mixture screws back in probably close to a full turn when I was setting them, before the idle changed. I'm probably closer to 1 1/2 turns now. Suppose that's moot since I'm back where I was before the last 2 posts.

 

Aluminum heads heat up extremely fast, compared to cast iron, so the valve covers getting hot quickly isn't a surprise. But I am a bit concerned about the bubbling in the radiator so quickly. Water bubbling out so soon makes me wonder about the head gaskets, or the heads themselves. Have you looked at the exhaust when you start it to see if there's any moisture coming out the tailpipe?
Keep an eye on that flooding. If it floods out overnight, that gas is going back into the oil pan again, and diluting the oil! You might need another oil change before it's too thin to protect the bearings.

 

How much water (roughly) should it take to refill the system when it's new? I haven't seen any water out of the exhaust, I was just looking under there yesterday as a matter of fact. I was thinking that it's the bubbles working there way out of the system but I don't want to leave the engine running with that staff splashing all over everything and on top of the battery. What could be wrong with the head gaskets so early on? The only moisture I've seen is on the inside top of the valve covers like in the pic I posted.


I'm going to pull the top of the carb off today before I do anything else and look at what that needle is doing in the seat. I've got the original needles/seats laying out and might just try putting them back in there. Easy enough to pull the top of the carb off to see if that helps anything. I've got more oil here already and planned on another change before I stored it for the winter.

 

Your cooling system should hold about 16 qts. of coolant. You should be able to put the cap on, but just leave it loose enough to not fall off. Then after it gets to operating temperature, it can be topped off. I drill at least one 1/8"-3/16" hole in the perimeter of the T stat, so when filling my systems they wont get an air lock.
There may be nothing wrong with your gasket, but if the gasket were to fail, it wouldn't always put coolant into the oil pan. Sometimes if they fail adjacent to a cylinder the compression will pump air into the cooling system, and bubbles will come up into the radiator. Give the radiator a whiff when it's cooled down, and see if you smell any sign of fuel smell in the coolant. May be nothing wrong, but I'm just a little concerned by this latest thing with bubbles in the coolant, and trying to come out the fill on the radiator before the engine gets warmed up.
By the way; how did you tighten the head bolts, and did you use washers with the headbolts for aluminum heads? I always do aluminum heads in 20 lb. incremements. I do the whole pattern at 20 lb., then 40 lb., etc., until I reach the torque setting. Of course the setting for aluminum heads is different than for cast iron. I also check the torque after the engine has had one heat up, and cool down. Just check at the final torque setting to ensure all is still good.

 

Yes I used washers with the head bolts and torqued them the same way you mentioned, in increments. I only used water at first, in case there were leaks as I didn't want coolant all over the place. Glad I did that too since those rubber couplers gave me problems on the stainless hoses. I used a 2 liter bottle to fill the system with water. I ended up using about 8 bottles full to fill it so that sounds about right. I might pull the thermostat out and see if that helps with any air pockets. The water doesn't come out as soon as I start the engine, it only does that after the engine warms up for a few minutes. After that, it takes a minute or so after I start it back up for the water to start coming out the radiator.


Headed downstate in a few hours now so the needles in the carb are going to have to wait. Didn't get a chance this afternoon, had to get some errands done that I wasn't planning on doing. Wasn't planning on going down so soon but plans changed. It's supposed to be quite cold after I get back on Friday so I'm not sure how that'll affect things but I am going to pull the top of the carb off and look at those needles to see if they're sticking. That's the only time the header tubes didn't glow was when I tapped on the carb yesterday. Just before that I had started the engine and watched the tube start to glow on #7.

 

That would be pretty cool if it was just a carb to fix the glowing header issue. Too bad it might have sent you down a few rabbit holes to get there. Frustrating when you start a new engine up, and unsure which of the new parts are the problem.

 

Yes sir, that's the worst part of this for me and certainly the most frustrating. Not knowing what is actually causing the issues and making me second guess all the stuff I did during assembly. Inexperience certainly doesn't help either. I just hope/pray the issue(s) can be isolated and corrected without any more major surgery. I read a lot about timing and how advance works lately so I hope also that I can get that all set properly. With the big cam I'm hoping the vacuum isn't too low and have that cause more issues. I'm going to work on it this weekend, temps will be in the 30s but hope I can get something figured out at least before the car gets pushed over for a few months.

Appreciate all the insight and guidance as always!

 

Vacuum and timing are pretty critical as they pertain to the engine tune! A lot of people also look at a vacuum advance, and think it operates the opposite of how it actually works. Many think it advances the distributor under acceleration, or vacuum drop, instead of retarding the timing, as it actually does.
A lot of factory or aftermarket distributors don't control the timing as well as we'd hope either, and need to have work done on them to clip the total advance, and not create situations that could destroy a motor.

 

I'll have to get a distributor recurve kit at some point, not trying to mess with that right now though. I read about using a limiter screw for the mechanical portion and think something like that might be needed. It appears that I'll need a lot of initial timing with this cam and think the mechanical advance is already starting to come in at idle. I don't know, something to get figured out after the carb is checked out and hopefully resolved.