I recently did the intake gasket on my 350 chev, today I ran the car for an hour or so and noticed oil building up around the intake on both sides on the manifold gasket, at fist I thought maybe oil was running down from the valve cover gasket but it is not, I used sealant on the bolts when installing also, they are edlebrock rpm aluminum heads and intake with ARP bolts is it possible I didn't torque it down enough? I torqued it to 20ftp...

 

What about around the distributor? Do you have a gasket there? Try to whipe it all down and pinpoint what is leaking.

 

Yes there is a gasket there, I'm certain the oil is coming from the intake gasket i pulled a vavle cover and was dry, but I'm not sure if its because its torqued wrong... The oil is seeping from the intake manifold gaskets only on the sides the front and back is dry

 

Did you torque the intake in the correct sequence? I'm pretty sure intake bolts get torqued to 18lbs and the sequence is something like center 4 then 1 back opposite side then repeat on front. I'd imagine you'd have a pretty nasty vacuum leak if the intake wasn't sealed (usually resulting in one bank of plugs being rich and one side lean) so the only other option is your bolts are leaking.

 

One more thing, what did you use to seal the front and back of the intake?

 

The front and back of the intake is fine, I used the copper high heat rtv...

 

First thing I'd do is check your vacuum (if you dont have a leak you must be leaking from the bolts, valve covers or bad breathers) then whipe it all down and try to pinpoint what is leaking.

 

Vacuum is pulling just under 15, car starts and idles fine, what should the torque be for this application? Thanks

 

20 ft-lbs is fine. The "spec" is probably closer to 30, being as how the hardware is that size; but 20 is entirely adequate.

Pull the 2 center bolts on each side, one at a time. Wire-brush whatever you put on the threads, off. Clean out the hole threads with a tap. Use some spray carb cleaner on both the bolts and the holes. Re-install them using the Permatex "high-temp thread sealer with Teflon". Use plenty. Make sure there's some under the head of the bolt.

The 2 at each end on each side are blind; only the center 2 on each side go through to the crankcase. So you don't have to do that to those other 8, only the center 4.

Check them all and make sure they're tight though, otherwise your next post is likely to be "I have water seeping out at the ends of the intake".