Oh yeah, forgot one. Yes I did. Threads clean and I dipped my head bolts in a left over quart of $8 synthetic Mobil :) I go all out (in some areas). They seemed to tighten down perfectly smooth with no catches, and I never stopped the movement, so that shouldnt be an issue. I guess this next time i will use a know to be good dial type wrench. I guess that is a good idea about the making a straight edge. Wonder what that would cost to have done. Im just scared to have that done just to find out it has to come out anyway. I surely wont have the same shop that did my head make it, Im not sure if they are at fault or not just yet, but just in case.

As I said before, the only work I did that involved the gasket sealing area was the very little bit or material I took off on the walls of the combustion chambers. Like I said, it was maybe only 1/32'' worth, so almost nothing. It was really just the material that was removed as I was smoothing the combustion chamber walls, which flowed all the way to the edge. Not enough to matter though I dont think. Surely people who do real deshrouding jobs take more than that and have no problem.

If I had to make a guess, I would say the head has a crown in it. Looking at the front of the head, the intake side is slightly raised, which would explain the "dead spots" on the head gasket around the cylinders where it looks like it was never crushed (can be seen in above pictures in first post). Could be wrong though. I will find out sometime this week I guess.

When you oiled the head bolts, you wiped them before you screwed them into the block right? If they were dripping wet with oil, or you had oil in the threaded block hole, there is a chance you could have had a false torque from the excess oil. Not saying that is what happened here but it does happen.

Yeah, I got the excess off. Still may have had a little much, but I dont think enough to change the torque.