Jason, what pound did you tighten head down to. When I had the motor built (the first time) they told me 75 pounds per square inch and this was with o-ringed block, standard head gasket and no reciver groove in the head for o-ring.
Since then I've changed to copper gasket when we rebuilt it properly with reciver groove now in the head and the guy from ridgecrest said to use the same torqe figure for head bolts as before.
Neil.