Last week I thought I was going to fire up the engine for the first time. I topped up the charge on the battery, checked for spark and saw a nice fat spark out of the Crane HI-6. I cranked the engine over to build up oil pressure and that looked OK. I switched off the ignition and switched on the electric fuel pump- arrggghhh fuel leaks in the carb fuel bowls. The gaskets were new and the screws were tight but there was gas leaking through the gaskets. These were new "non-stick" fiber gaskets from a Holley rebuild kit and the gasket surfaces were in good shape so there seems to be no other explanation than these gaskets are NFG. I wonder if this Holley rebuild kit is a counterfeit instead of genuine Holley.
In any case, I ordered new gaskets directly from Speedway Motors (due tomorrow), this time I'll try the Buna-N "non-stick" gaskets. These should solve the leak problem. Before this I had not realized that there were different gasket choices for Holley double-pumpers.
Has anyone else had problems with counterfeit fiber gaskets?