1995 V940 8-Valve (B230FD) with 269,800 on the clock.

BLUF Question
Is there any solid reason *NOT* to grease the iron block surface before installing the head gasket? I know it's not required; but aside from using a Reinz gasket instead of a Elring, It's the one thing I did differently on this head gasket job.

The problem(s) - The Reinz Gasket only kinda sealed to the head and didn;t stick to the block at all. Nasty oil had seeped into couple of my bolt wells and didn't come out with paper towels. This likely caused false torque readings on my two torque wrenches.



Background
I did a big round of engine maintenance back at the end of October, including a new Volvo OEM water pump, low-mileage cleaned-up head, gates kevlar timing belt, and a general tune-up.

Despite having a prior head gasket successes (B18B, B20E, B230FD B5234T3) this change didn't work out well. After a couple days of smelling coolant and oil burn off the motor, I parked it and discovered that I had oil leaking out intake side and coolant leaking out of the exhaust side of the head gasket. Pretty awful.

I had a prior thread where I reported that the head gasket didn't seal
http://www.brickboard.com/RWD/volvo/1580217/940/960/980/V90/S90/head_gasket_didnt_seal_aww_man.htm

Current
With the return of >40F temperature today, I started examining the problem.
I torn town the top end of the engine and pulled the head off. Here's what I learned.

Despite the torques reading even across all bolts, it took substantially less effort to break some bolts loose. Some extremely nasty oil had seeped down into a couple of the bolt holes. I'm sure that this was part of the problem, but I don't think that it is the only issue. The oily holes don't align with the leaks, but it would have eventually been a problem...

After removing the head entirely, I noticed that it came away *very* cleanly. It's sealed to the head, but there's barely an adhesion mark on the block. I think that this is the evidence of the real problem.

With the exception of my white-block B5234T3 engine, I've always greased the iron-side of the head gasket. I did not do that this time, and I think the lack of grease and the lower quality of the reinz gasket kept it from sealing to the block.

I've rulde out "flatness" problems on the head surface and the block surface.

I've cleaned out the bolt holes with compressed air (nasty stuff) and I'm about to clean the block again.

If anyone knows a seriously good reason to *not* grease the iron block before reinstallation, please post asap.

I'm using an elring this time.

Thanks for any and all advice.