well, twice now i have sprung an oil leak from the lower manifold on the passenger side rear. I have tried two methods of sealing it: rtv gasket maker alone, and rtv on one of the little rubber strips. the rubber strip seemed to last the longest at about 500 miles, but thats ridiculous. i also dimpled the cast iron on the block to create a better grip, and used brake clean to prep the surface. since the tpi intake takes almost a full day to remove and reinstall, i dont want to do it again. what should i use/do to garuntee it doesnt leak again?

btw, it has aluminum heads

 

I use the copper based gasket "rtv" on my LT1 as well as on the 3rd gen engine. No leaks on the LT1 after over 20k miles.

 

I also use the copper plus RTV. I never use the rubber valley end gaskets any more, as I've had more than one want to squish out on me. NO RTV on the intake manifold gasket itself, a good 1/4" bead on the valley end walls, and up just a tad onto the tab of the intake gasket. You want to make sure you set the intake set down nice and level so you don't distort the RTV on the end walls. Never had a problem or leak this way. Maybe your RTV bead isn't big or tall enough?

 

I believe that Camaro 69 is trying to say that size does matter.

 

Why yes, yes it does. But sometimes too big can also be a problem.
Your bead wants to be just the right size to fit the space allowed.

 

Seems like you might have another problem, Check your pcv valve and make sure the motor has good ventilation. You could be building press in side motor, 500 miles seems kinda soon for oil leak, plus make sure you are torquing everything nice and even when you put manifold on and recheck after warm

 

thanks 69. i used the rtv supplied with the fel-pro intake kit. fel-pro has really let me down a lot recently (intake gaskets on darlingreject's car, intake on my car, head gaskets on my truck), so im using some federal mogul lower intake and ill try the copper rtv. i just wish there was a faster way to remove the tpi intake

 

btw, is the copper sensor safe?