Well, I found the oil leak, still in the intake. I pulled it after seeing oil on the gasket with the carbs off. I pulled the intake and sure enough, the bottom of the gaskets are soaked.I have built 12 Big Block Chevys, not to mention other GM products, I am ready to trade this piece of @$%^ for the first GTO or Chevelle I can find! What a POS design! I guess I will re measure the angle and try to mill the #%^&*$# intake to try to get it to seal. What a POS design, what with the angle and 2-1/2"x 1/4" bolts, it is a wonder that Mopar sold as many of these POS as they did! They leaked oil like
a screen door on a submarine. It is no wonder that "original" engines are so rare in HEMI cars! They all ran out of oil! I wondered when I read original road tests that claimed that a quart of oil was needed with every fill up! I don't know how they ever made a 500 mile race in the sixties without blowing up! And talking about a pain in the @$# to work on! Try pulling the valve covers and intake TWICE with power brakes! POS!

Sounds like your having fun But at least you found the problem.

Glad you found it however there is nothing wrong with the general design. I've run them since 1980 and never have had the problem you're having. Anyway I hope you get to the root of the problem.

Sheldon

Pull the intake and use a feeler gauge to find out what thickness intake gaskets you need Also you need to know that the intake manifolds need to be torque down multiple times before starting the engine to insure they are going to stay tight, torque down. I use a inch lb wrench and torque the center four bolts and studs to 72 inch lbs, the remaining outer ones get torque to 48 inch lbs I retighten until none of the bolts or studs take any more movement or torque Retighten them again after warming the motor up also I use a aircraft gasket sealer on the fiber intake gaskets, not on the teflon coated intake gaskets These old motors, heads and intake can be cut a bunch of times before you get the parts Sealing the intakes on both the B and RB as well as the 426 street hemi and race hemi can be challenging

Cab, I measured top and bottom on intake/head gap then best port lineup when I did this the first time. Came up with .060. Now gasket is wet on bottom, about halfway up before the clamp force blocked oil
Migration. So do I go to .090 thick?

If it was square on all four corners, the exact same measureemnt on the top and bottom on both sides I would try the .090 If it wasn't square, especially if wider on the bottom than the top, I would have the intake cut on a angle so the bottom is tighter than the top by .0015 to .0030 I've had to have that done many times on lots of Mopar V8 You might want to put the intake on the motor and then use seveal intake bolts(not real tight, maybe 20 to 30 inch lbs) to hold the manifold in place so you can get aggressive on using the feeler gauges to get it measure the best you can before proceeding You can loosen them and try moving the intake to get it center also before deciding what measurements are where We don't calll these motors Hemiriods for nuthin, if it was easy all of them would be perfect Good luck

Doe's the intake sit on the china wall when bolted down? Is there a gap for a bead of silicone? Just thinking of anything to check!!!!

Well, I hope everyone else is having a great Labor Day weekend, mine is a bust. Just to review, I discovered that I had oil wicking THROUGH my paper composition intake gaskets. Sealed to both intake and head with silicone but POURING THROUGH the paper! So I installed .060 Superformance gaskets dry except for the end rails as instructed. Result, oil pouring AROUND the gasket even with clear imprint showing good compression into the gasket! Over a quart in 70 miles! That was two weekends ago. I started talking to old time engine builders, racers etc. First comment, NO ONE runs dry intake gaskets with high rpm or large cubic inch, (over 500) engines. A good friend and former HEMI super stock racer agreed to help if I would listen to him. No one else offered to step foot in the garage so I took him up on his offer.
He used .060 and .090 wire to space the manifold up and check for matching intake/manifold angles (also double checked with angle finder). This also showed a little better port alignment at .090. He suggested that .090 would also allow more gasket crush/bite. Next he told me to stud the intake. That way all the torque would be crushing the gasket vs. being used to thread into the heads.
Lastly, he told me to buy "Honda Bond" to use as a sealer. It is now Thursday night, long weekend, and the two largest car shows of the year coming up back to back. The second one requires a drive of almost three hundred miles round trip. I started ordering parts Red Label. I know better, something always goes wrong when it JUST HAS TO GET HERE BY FRIDAY!
In order to make up .090", I had to order two sets of Superformance gaskets, one 030 and one 060. Then studs, McMaster Car was the only place I could find that had 1/4-20 studs 3-1/2" long with 1" thread on either end. That was discovered on Friday so I had a "Saturday" next day air on those! all told, over $135 just on shipping!
Saturday morning was spent at the track watching the Pro Mod race. Several of the racers are friends. One runs an all aluminum 8-71 blown HEMI. I talked to ALL of them, they confirmed that they had to use either 3M weatherstrip adhesive or "import silicone" on the intake gaskets or they would have to pick them out of the exhaust ports! So I go home and get started waiting for my SS buddy to arrive. First I install my studs with a drop of Blue Locktight to "refusal" (as deep as they would go as per instructions). My buddie arrives and final inspects everything, one more wipe down with laquer thinner and he opens the gaskets on a clean work bench,,,,,,one is clearly market 060 with part#, the other is clearly marked 030 with DIFFERENT part#, and ALL FOUR GASKETS MEASURE 030"!!!!! CHECKED WITH A MICROMETER!!!!!!! I AM TOTALLY SCREWED!!!!!!!

Let me state here and now, EVERYONE makes mistakes, someone put the wrong part in the wrong package, it happens. Due to my experience with other gaskets, I will NOT use other brands! They are all PAPER! They WILL wick oil into the ports! But still, what a disappointment. Here are the studs, (don't let me bore you but continue reading as this becomes another problem)

Just to check, I installed the intake DRY, no gasket, on the heads. Notice the height of the stud ABOVE the intake surface, note that the studs were 1/4" LONGER than the bolts they replaced.

Now compare to the driver side, I don't know if I will have any thread left when I install the gasket on the passenger side!

Here is one of the real problems, there is no room for a mike so I used calipers, there is just .150" of material in this area to seal the HUGE vacume in the port! I bought the rotating assembly new, freshly machined and balanced at Diamond Elkins, from a long time friend of Dan Manchini, Butch Elkins, and a long list of famous Mopar racers/builders. In discussing this with him, he relayed stories about racing in the "High Roller Club". This group would race, flat out from Detroit to Chicago, stop, then race back! His HEMI Charger would see 6,800-7,200 rpm for hours! Oil consumption was a problem! One of his buddies, installed a small "O" ring around the stud in this area to prevent the gasket from taking all the abuse!

Check the hole depth on the pass side. They are probably deeper. U could back the studs out to match the driver's side. Put some sleeve retainer on the studs so they move. If u ever have to remove them, heat me up, they will come right out.

Sorry about the quality of my camera, but this is a photo of the REAL HEMI brake booster and master cylinder. It is ESSENTIAL if you are going to run solid lifters, or work on the top end of a HEMI. It is still a pain to do, but you can remove it from the firewall and tie it off (be careful, wrap in rags to keep from scratching the paint) without having to undo the brake lines and then have to re bleed the brakes.

It is a lot of trouble to remove the valve covers and intake on a Hemi with power brakes, so when I did, I checked the valve lash while waiting for parts. With the intake off, you can clearly see when you are on the "heel" of the cam vs. starting up or down a ramp. Don't let ANYONE fool you, follow the exhaust open/Intake open, start to close procedure! In fact, be careful to adjust EXACTLY at those points or your lash will not show true! This is the product that all my racing friends recommend and use to seal the gaskets. Why and how did they discover it? I don't know. All I do know is they refuse to use any other product! (Universally, they are embarased to use an "import" product but universally recommend it!

I use Yamabond from my dirt track days.. I'm sure its
the same as the hondabond

Yep, very similar to IH gray sealant, very good stuff! Had to reseal a 7.3 powerstroke oil pan and just about bent the pan getting it off. Its all that is used from the factory.

You seem to be on the right track now (quality gaskets, verifying manifold fit,sealant, etc)

The only other thing is did you continue to keep re-torquing the manifold until it finally settled in ?

It's not uncommon to have to keep re-tightening everything many times over before it holds

I apologize if this was already mentioned