[bergy]

Actually, those 4 little round impressions are chaplets that were placed in the mold to keep the water jacket from moving during pouring/solidification. The heads are poured combustion chamber up. The chaplets are steel, so they didn't fuse during pouring with the relatively low temperature aluminum. This lack of fusion enabled water to "weep" out through chaplet stem when the engine was fired up. The simple fix for this water leak was to hit the center of the chaplet face hard with the point of a punch - forcing the steel to come in better contact with the aluminum. This "repair" was also incorporated on iron heads when the inspector noted poor fusion at the chaplet area.

The aluminum entered the molds through 6 gates located on the parting line of the exhaust manifold face. Evidence of these gates was later machined off. The mold was vented at the at the core prints, so no evidence of venting remained on the castings.