
LARGE SIZE IMAGES AHEAD
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Before cleaning.
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I've used locally made RTV and liquid to rubber compound in the past on the older engine for the valve cover before I replaced the paper gasket and it leaked at 20 hours. There are no more genuine products in where I live, I cant ship liquids anymore. Takes 2 days for the RTV clone to dry.
The surfaces are too smooth, I temporarily used very thick viscosity grease (brakes) and applied a thin layer. It feels like an adhesive even while hot. Hope I find a good product in the next few days. The aluminum shim is not mirror smooth however you can barely feel the machined grooves.
I'm at loss, I used the sides of a straight edge ruler with a feeler gauge and didn't notice any warp except the actual fuel pump surface is flat but very round around the edges, probably too round thinning the contact area. It feels like the modifications that they made require much more torque and bigger bolts as the whole assembly extrudes much longer than the original design and the mating surfaces are too thin around the bolts. Torqued nuts at 11nm. Would annealing the copper shims help? So that it shrinks and expands on installation, I'm not sure the mounting pressure is enough. Or using multiple very thin copper/aluminum shims.
Edit to add, the studs are thread locked. And the oil leak was around the nuts aswell, with very little amount, not enough to flow on the casing. It takes at least 20 hours before an oil leak is noticeable, maybe oil is sitting there compared to the original design which is flush mount? The copper shims are in this order: Fuel Pump > 0.2mm -> 0.2mm -> ~4mm -> 0.1mm -> Block