I have been having trouble with getting my carb adjusted and idle to smooth out since I swapped to vortec heads and edelbrock performer intake. The intake is a vortec style intake. Anyway, today I found a huge vacuum leak in the cyl 1,3 intake port location. I assumed that since my engine was pulling 17-18 in of Hg of vacuum, i didn't have a leak. There is definately a leak there though.

My question is if anyone else has had issues getting these intakes to seal against the heads? Does anyone have any tips for me to help make sure I don't screw this up twice? I used the suggested edelbrock gaskets and used silicone gasket goop at the front and back ends of the valley and around the coolant ports. I checked the manifold for flatness before I installed the first time and will recheck when I pull it for this repair.

Any suggestions guys? Thanks in advance
Nate

 

Use factory gaskets (hard plastic shell with rubber o-rings around all the ports). Tighten the bolts only "screwdriver tight". Keep using RTV on the end walls, like you did before. Factory gaskets really do a very good job sealing things up and last almost forever if you don't overtighten them. Heard too many problems with paper-style gaskets on Vortec applications.

 

http://www.otocar.info/small-block-c...tructions.html

 

Thanks Guys. I wonder why summit and edelbrock suggest the edelbrock 7235 gaskets for my application? I got the gaskets and I will give them a shot this weekend.