A question on intakes, I set three different Hemi intakes on the heads and each has a slight gap at the bottom face. Is this normal? I have to shave the faces about .060 and not sure to keep the same or get them same angle as port face. I would think the same angle so the fit flush. What are your thoughts

"bottom face"= china wall front and rear?

If so, yes, normal.

Stock used a cork gasket to take up the space, or fill with RTV like most (definitely not all) modern builders, whichever seems like a better approach.

"I have to shave the faces about .060 and not sure to keep the same or get them same angle as port face."

Faces=intake port flanges?

Sounds like you need to cut it to fit and use RTV on the front and rear china walls.

I’m talking the port faces, where the gasket goes

Okay.

As best I understand, there shouldn't be any perceptible gap between the intake manifold and the cylinder head
anywhere on the intake port flange.

A really rough test--if you lay the manifold on the heads without gaskets, and can get (just for instance) a .004" or so feeler gauge between the parts, it should be corrected, the gasket probably isn't going to take up the difference.

If .004 won't fit, gently try .002......you don't want any gaps

Yes here is a port match on mine with superforance gasket. Gaskets come in different thickness. Put manifold on without gaskets and match ports and measure to see what you need. The gap on the china rail doesn't matter RTV seals it. The port match is whats important.

Mike

I’m of the same opinion, I wonder if this is a common problem with gaskets being suck in on the lower edge so much.

Right along that bottom edge is the gap. I can rock it so one side is tight and of course it opens up more on the other. All three stock manifolds do the same. Heads do not look like they’ve been cut but the deck has, do S/S racers angle cut the deck?

I don't have a lot of Gen II Hemi experience but the design of the intake attachment is puzzling. With straight-up fasteners it seems manifold alignment would be less forgiving of block/head milling. IOW, with the head sitting farther or closer to the crank centerline, the manifold would bind on the close-fitting vertical studs.

Your manifold needs milled. As zippy stated, center the manifold, measure the gap with feeler gauge. You can get different gasket thickness to get your ports lined up.

All 3? a stock 2-4, rat roaster and a Hogan crossram? Might do the heads then all will fit

It's clear the Gen 2 heads were adapted to the wedge block back in the day, it's definitely not a clean sheet of paper design.

Are these iron heads?

I feel the angle should be checked and corrected, but without a print I don't know what it should be.

These deals lead right into becoming a classic Mopar parts hoarder just to have extra junk to mock up
with, and observe (if the same problem exists with 2 or 3 sets of heads, and they all have the same angle....
then we can assume it's probably not the heads).

But......with three intakes/one set of heads showing the same issue, it seems we've headed down that road far enough already with intakes instead.

If they're angle milled, then I would think there would probably be some major changes made for pushrod clearance. How does that look?

I ran into this on a small block that was cut quite a bit. If you bolt to one head without a gasket, you can measure top/bottom of other side with feeler gauges. Then you can do the math to subtract the gaskets and divide by two. That’ll tell you roughly how much top/bottom edge you want Angle milled on both sides to bring it closer to alignment. Was easier for me than bringing them the motor at the time.

It is very common on old use parts to have the intake manifold to not fit a different engine properly, I use a feeler gauge set to see how good or bad the intakes fit on most Mopar engine I build. Take the manifold and heads and make sure they are clean with no gasket material or silicone gasket maker on the gasket surfaces and set the intake on the heads, rock it back and forth and side to side and look down the manifold bolt holes to see if the intake bolt alignment to the heads is good or not and then use your feeler gauge to see how much gap you have at each corner at the top and bottom. I like to see no gap at the bottom on both sides and no more than .0030 (three thousands) gap at the top of the intake to the heads
Write the gaps down on each corner so you can take it to a good machine shop to have them machine and correct the face, if needed
My current 400 stroker bracket motor has right at .180 in gasket installed to seal the cut down intake to match those heads on that block
A lot of the tock OEM street hemi suck oil through the bottoms of the stock intake gaskets due to taper intake faces on the stock intake manifolds

A lot of SS Hemi heads have the intake face cut more vertical to reduce the port CC volume. The rules are you cannot cut into the valve cover bolt holes, so they angle mill the intake faces on the heads more on the deck side to avoid cutting into the v/c bolt holes. A photo of what you have should explain things better. I have an old set of SS heads and they came with wedge shaped spacers to fill the gap. You can see the gap to the china wall at the deck surface in the attached photo on a "Walcott" engine.

Zippy, if the heads are milled it’s on the intake side since the bottom is where the gap is, bolt holes are opened up larger than stock (66 iron heads) pushrod holes in block are reamed out bigger to.
Cab, do you think it’s on purpose or just milling off? I was thinking because the manifold is aluminum and head iron maybe when bolted down and heated it might square up?? Really the only Chrysler engine with two different materials (other than the 6/barrel). I do like the bolts going straight down, it pulls the intake into each head instead of trying to pull to each side like the 440. Whatever way I do the milling it’ll be .020 more than the gasket I use to even up the ports.

How much was block decked, is it square. Most older heads have been milled at some point. Are the heads square, did you cc them. How thin is the valve cover surface on intake side. Many heads have been milled on the intake and if it was not levelled properly you could have that problem. You can do the manifold, but that becomes a one off for that combo only. I would think you are better off finding out if the block or heads are the issue and getting them square.

Agree, but I bought another block and 2 heads today I’ll so push that stuff to the side for now. Actually two, a 66 and a mega. Probably sell that block now

Interesting approach, but don't be surprised if you still have some issues to work through. I purchased a 66 and MP block package a few years ago. Getting ready for assembly. Been interesting working through the issues you find, unfortunately sequentially. Luckily, I have access to a mentor, and plenty of parts, tools and machinery and examples to work with. While major machine work, done at local shops, I got to deck my heads, and block, calculate all the specific blue print info. Was surprised to see how far off stock stuff was, but the mentor was not.

If either the block or head deck surface were tipped/cut at an improper angle, the same issue wouldn't exist?

Okay

Don't be surprised or too upset if the new block and heads are the same. I would bet that most have somewhat of a gap at the bottom and were put together over the years without ever knowing it was there. Lol