2.6 liter head gasket findings and questions

the motor in my truck now is almost dead and theres no way that it will pass an emmisions test, and im due for one in jan. so me and a buddy tore apart my spare 2.6 liter motor today, i bought it from crazymikey 2 years ago and sat in the corner since,

we washed the living crap out of it and it looked great, we did a compression test and a leak down test on it, everything turned out good
apearently the motor was over heating or something so i wanted to tear it down and replace all the gaskets, new timing chain, and have the head machined and checked,
taking it apart was a dream, like watching those shows on t.v, and when we pull the head off only to find something a little shocking, the tops of the pistons were almost new and the valves was barely dirty,
but... we noticed the water jackets on the gasket were TINY! the block had nice large ones and the head was smaller, but both head gaskets old and new were even smaller, )example) the head had a 1/4" opening and the gasket had 1/8" holes and theres lots of them

now to the questions!! sorry about the story...
i know the 2.6 liter sucks for cooling but...
if i increasted the holes for the water jackets in the head gasket to match the head:
A: will it help with the cooling or make it worse
B: slow down the flow of the coolant to the head and cause it over heat more?
by the end of the night there were 4 of us talking about what it might do, good and bad

i hope you guys understand what im talking about and i want to hear your opinions, thoughts and ideas about this situation

thanks

ok opening the holes in the gasket,will make it flow better, but there is no "it will" or "it wont"...we would do this to a v8 all the time and it would run cooler,but im not saying it will do the same for your motor...but in theory it should...i.e. better flo better cooling...like you said just throwin my 2 cents in

ive got my 2.6L half torn appart right now too cause it over heated a few years back and it has just been sitting since but summer is coming and she needs to see pavement again. im replacing the water pump, thermostat, front crank seal (if i can figure out how to get that damn bottom pully off lol) and getting my rad checked.... should i be pulling the head while im at it ????

sorry to steal your thread

oh ya ive heard rumors about putting the 2.0L head on the 2.6L block is that a load of shit ???

yes the 2.0 and 2.2 are the same but notthe same as the 2.6 motors

so i need the head from a 2.6L and nothing else then ??

well im currently, going through a fiasco with FEL-PRO and a faulty head gasket of theirs, missing SEVEN water jackets on the head gasket. IMHO i think it would actually HELP the coolant move faster, and cool it WAAAY better. My reasoning is that you have pressure coming through the block = X. amount of coolant going through your block is = Y. since its a closed circuit cooling system, for more pressure to build up you will need more coolant to reach the pump, meaning no matter how big or small those wholes are the PRESSURE NEVER CHANGES, it then goes through your head and back into the block through your system and back to the pump. X never changes not once. Now Y on the other hand due the the CLOSED CIRCUIT cooling system will change, it starts at (Y) coming from your water pump goes through your block and then gets to your gasket it is now at a decrease of allowed volume under a certain pressure (X) slowing down the flow of fluids but never changing the pressure. so now we are at (Y/2) it then travels through your head and back once again hitting another gasket. but since the inlet and the outlet of coolant in your head never changes the amount of coolant is a constant meaning it is still (Y/2). once it reaches back to your block its under MAXIMUM efficiency and goes back to (Y) as it flows freely through ur thermostat housing and your radiator. So if that makes sense to you, then by me saying that it is probably your BEST bet to try this. THEN PLEASE do so, because i will be going through the same fact of trial and error in less then 2 days.

did it work? yay or nay? i gotta rebuild my hole motor and i was wondering if that worked for you.

i went to the machine shop to have the head rebuilt, and i asked the machinest if its ok to enlarge the coolant passages in the gasket
and he said no, dont do it,
i asked why?
and he said:
the head gasket is designed to keep the engine at an equal tempeture across all four cylenders so the design is slow down the coolant flow at the front of the motor because the front of the motor is going to cool down first, which is understandable
so then i asked what if i enlarged all the passages one size bigger?
then he said it sounded better but he still doesnt trust it, the coolant flow might not move enough and not have enough pressure and overheat at idle and wont cool down fast enough cuz the coolant isnt moving fast enough
i asked more questions but it just made me look crazy and weird so im just going to leave it

ok so maybe i wont do that lol. thanks midnight