Valley gasket change what else shall I do?

[FactBV]

I have a small oil leak from the rear of my valley gasket (4.0 pre-cat) which I will do shortly. Just planning ahead and with the access that I need, what else might be worthwhile doing?

Replace with a composite gasket?
Check the cam and followers?
Rocker cover refurb?
Replace injector seals?
Insulator gasket?
ACT carbon trumpets (I've got a healthy 4.0 250 gas flowed engine, producing around 215 bhp but a very respectable 275 lb/ft of torque, identical on both austec's dyno and at the growl), will they make any difference? I did notice the difference when I fitted them on my old 4.3BV.
Clean up some of the induction and fuelling components! vapour cleaning, plating? Anyone done a refresh in this area?

Thanks in advance - Peter

[black and green]

Remove the hot water connection below the throttle body and plug the resulting holes?

Insulator plate below the plenum is worth it IMHO, I made one from 3mm tufnol sheet off ebay.

Cleaning and refurb as you mentioned, maybe replace the rocker cover flame trap?

Check for loose trumpets, maybe shorten by 6-10mm?

All the above are cheapskate but worth considering.

[FactBV]

black and green said:

Remove the hot water connection below the throttle body and plug the resulting holes?

Insulator plate below the plenum is worth it IMHO, I made one from 3mm tufnol sheet off ebay.

Cleaning and refurb as you mentioned, maybe replace the rocker cover flame trap?

Check for loose trumpets, maybe shorten by 6-10mm?

All the above are cheapskate but worth considering.

Thanks

I have changed the flame trap and will probably do the rocker covers, I also have a set on new metal TVR badges for the covers. The car will pull from 750rpm in 5th, nice and smoothly so want to be sure messing about with the trumpets will not mess that up.

Is the insulator gasket simply designed to just stop heat being transferred to the plenum?

Thanks again

[black and green]

Yep, that's all it does. I suspect that it is more effective at idle, as at speed the engine will be ingesting a couple of hundred cubic feet of air each minute. I just made one as I could do it on the cheap!

[V8Bart]

Looking at a similar job, seen some one powder coat the water pipes matte black, looked rather tidy as well.

[FactBV]

V8Bart said:

Looking at a similar job, seen some one powder coat the water pipes matte black, looked rather tidy as well.

I really wanted to keep it as standard as possible. The car is just having a new ACT cherry bomb exhaust fitted so will have a look when it comes back to see what is plated, coated, polished etc.

Anyone restored the induction / fuel side to its original condition?

[black and green]

Mine looks standard, but I ported and gasket matched the heads and inlet manifold, chamfered the throttle body inlet and knife-edged the throttle body butterfly.

Externally, I just cleaned everything back to a natural aluminium finish with wire wool and WD40. Shiny polished aluminium and bright powder coated finishes don't do it for me and I'm too lazy to maintain them!