So what yall are saying is that possibly oil made its way up through the bolts and soaked the gasket? Only thing on the bolts when i took them out was thread sealant.
Seal all the bolt threads with "Aviation Sealer" it's the same product that is used to seal the bolt threads at the water pump where the bolts go into the water jacket, and they don't leak.
And as Stated, the 4 corner bolts need to be shorter than the rest because they are bottoming out in the blind holes before the manifold is tight.
The manifold steps down on the 4 corners so you nee the shorter bolts there.
