valve cover leakn oil onto exhaust.....

[vq35]

Howdy folks

heres a little update on my little nightmare.....
started with a repeating knock sensor code, after trying everything else, decided to take the plunge ....literally, as this thing is under the fuel rail

fast forward a few hours and all new gaskets (including valve cover since i was there) came back out and went for a spin. SMOKE, lotsa smoke.....looked and oil was dripping onto passenger side manifold

followed tightening sequence on the fsm ...... frustrated, went back in but had access to the valve cover without removing fuel rail and retightened thinking I didnt tighten it enough...same leak, same smoke
any special procedure with valve cover/gaskets???
any direction appreciated

[xswamperx]

Just did my valve covers last week..man what a job 97(3.3L). Passenger side was easy no prob took a cpl hrs but i cleaned the snot out of the cover and the two mating surfaces meticulously. Driver side was a true nightmare, had to remove the whole intake plenum to access the valve cover. Ohh an the heater hoses on the back of them are no joke to remove/which i ended up cutting w/ a flat razor blade..or to reinstalling them either. Nonetheless I finished the driver side up, spent a day an a half on it..and shes running beautifully. I can only attest that because of how much I truly cleaned every mating surface up..(to what looked brand new), that I had no leaks.

Now I ask you this..Did you clean the covers and mating surfaces really good before installing your new gaskets, making sure there was no oil on them? and did you get new rubber grommets for your top side screws/bolts? Is it leaking from the screws or the gasket part? Did you torque your screws down properly? The top screws on my valve covers had a torque value of 9-26lbs. Don't just tighten them all down at one time either. Follow your sequence order and ease into your torque value. I followed my sequence order for about 5x around and tightened them slowly down until I got to 15lbs roughly. If all this still fails you when go to fire it up again and it leaks..then you most likely, in my own opinion have a jacked up valve cover and you'll need to replace that. If it got a little bent, or when cleaning out the old gasket material, you happened to scrape any portion of the metal mating surface, then its gonna leak.

[vq35]

Admit did not clean first round and second round failed to evenly distribute the silicone. Second round changed leak spot so silicone had an effect. Going back in again...

[xswamperx]

If you use the Fel-pro gasket and gromet kit for the valve covers then no silicone/rtv is used at all. Thats probably another reason why its leaking cuz your using that. The kits cheap like 30bux if I remember.

[vq35]

Much appreciated, these are available for the 3.5 as well?
Already picked up a gasket but re using the gromets.....

Where can I order this kit?

[Towncivilian]

Fel-Pro Valve Cover Gasket Set
Fel-Pro Intake Manifold Gasket Set

You'll still need a new throttle body gasket from the dealer or elsewhere. Dealer part is cheap, though, so just get that one.

As I said on NPORA, you should be using Loctite Ultra Grey as gasket maker which is on Nissan's approved list. Are you replacing all gaskets and any other parts you remove that are marked "X" on EM-39?

[vq35]

Ok
I started off with a brand new gasket set all the way down to the valve cover - so I have been re using those since you provided that picture of the knock sensor

I also replaced o rings since I had to remove fuel rail - everything went well but the leak.....went down 3 times and on 2nd round, I destroyed pass side valve cover so replaced that with oe part as before

I am now going to use grey silicone as per your suggestion ...

have taken a few pix and will post once I am done and there is no leak...