The V8 Owners Forum -

The Edelbrock 500 carb & manifold kit I've bought for my 4.6 includes a tin valley gasket, rubber seals and clamps but I'm going to use a coated gasket instead.
I thought the rubbers and clamps for both gaskets were the same but on googling for a coated gasket, some sites say they're different and some don't mention it!
Are they different?

Been a long long time since I used RV8 stuff, but I used the coated valley gasket, and rubbers etc.

Can't see why they would be any different ?

From what I recall, the rubber seals go under the gasket which is then clamped on top. The rubber seal doesn't care what's on top of it.

It appears that "early" rubbers were flat rather than shaped to fit the cylinder block at the valley ends, the "late" rubbers are shaped and the bolt hole pip is in a wide flat triangular rather than little semicircular pip on the "early" type.
The "early" clamps seem to vary, some bolt holes are round, some are elongated and they're narrower front-to-back but with a wider rounded section around the bolt hole to clear the bolt head. The "late" clamps are straight edged and made from a rectangle of metal rather than a 'shaped' piece and hence a greater width all the way to the ends.
I spent a lot of time on the internet looking into this and then thought I wonder what I've got on my engine now? I should have looked first - turns out it's a coated gasket, late style rubbers and early clamps...
It doesn't leak and the ends of the later clamps are too wide to fit next to the SU manifold anyway, maybe the Edelbrock'll be the same.

No idea what's early or late, but pretty sure all the ones I used were shaped.

And even that is largely late 90's

The seals and clamps got wider from about 1995 onwards, presumably to make a better seal.

I always stick a splodge of sealant in the little corners between head and block to ensure a good seal.

Chris.