Awwww. Crap.

Imagine that....... an old overheat event caused this late failure. Jarrod should really do something about that echo in here.

The scene you have painted tells me there may be a bright spot in all this. As presented, it seems as though you might get away with only a head gasket. It sounds like it blew out between cylinders.

for your part, you have done all you reasonably should to rule out the rings and Starkie has given you the best advice on the exhaust nuts. Proceed with caution there.

Many will tell you that my incident was 'rare'. I hope that is true. But I would be remiss if I did not caution you to the possibility that a freshly restored head has the POTENTIAL to blow out a ring or two on start up. The point being, don't do what I did and decide to rebuild the whole frigging car "while you are in there anyway".

Good Luck to you my friend.