Done deal, already swapped out the previous set of gaskets for a fresh new set of Fel-Pro's. Threw in a new one for the throttle body while i was there.
As for wrist tight, the calibration on my wrists, mostly due to age and excessive abuse involving the lifting and movement of multiple heavy boxes all at once when younger, is almost beyond rehab. They should have been revisited and rechecked decades ago. Plus which, the bolts on the intake are not all the same when it comes to amount of "twist" they seem to need to bed them. At least two take a little more "wrist' to get them to run down to snug than the others. The thread on the bolts all got introduced to a wire wheel at speed, so could be the threads in the head. This is not about bind, Did give the bolts a swipe of never Seize and, despite protests to the contrary, prefer that route when dealing with steel bolts being set into aluminum thread, even if an alloy. Likely to be more about galvanic action in the locations as the original bolts were just that, original, as in what the factory zapped into place on the assembly line.
ARP does make a thread chaser kit for metric threads and it may come to me having one brought in but they ain't cheap and this is going to be the only LS motor to ever cross the threshold of my garage/shop so the number of specialty tools that I end accumulating is going to be a small as possible. Thing here is that if I buy the chasers as I have need of them, the total cost of the first three or so tends to add up to about the cost of them all if I buy the set.
Anyway, any trust I may have had in my wrists is now only to the extent that they work more or less as designed. Beyond that, they are like every other joint and joiner that I own. Good thing Cola comes in plastic bottles because dropsy involving glass can get nasty right quick.
Nick