My trick to stop leaking valve covers has worked for years now.
Purchase 2 sets of cork Felpro valve covers. Find a nice flat place to work. Take your gasket, lay it flat on some news paper and dampen one side with a little water on a sponge. Spread GORILLA GLUE all over it nice and smooth with your finger. Now cut your finger off because it's the only way to remove the Gorilla Glue. After that. lay the other gasket on top. You may have to use pins or thumb tacks to keep it from sliding around, bowing up and to keep it lined up. Tape news paper over a flat piece of wood and slide that over the gaskets while removing the pins if you used them. lay the wood on and pile a bunch of weight on it. And walk away for a day......with 2 less fingers.
If you don't use the news paper, when the glue bubbles out, it will stick to both surfaces and when you take the weight off you may need to tare everything apart to separate them. Now, a day later, peal and rip the news paper away carefully and trim the excess glue off with an Exsacto knife. A bench grinder comes in handy to buff off around the edges a bit. The glued gaskets have more rigidity then if you used RTV and also will never slide out from each other when putting them on or torquing them down. They will never leak from between them and the glue will never break down..........hence removing your fingers.
I like to glue them down to the head first and let them sit for an hour or so because my heads are clearanced heavily into the gasket area for the pushrods. I also have to cut deep notches in the gasket quite a lot. I don't want them to move at all and be rubbed by the pushrods. I also spread RTV on the top of the gasket before I put on the valve cover.
I use studs instead of bolts. Just some stainless threaded rod cut to length with nuts and washers. I thread the stud in by hand as far as it will go. Then use the nut to squeeze the covers down nice and snug. I know that I won't strip my aluminum heads if I periodically decide to give them a half a turn now and then. Also with the added thickness of 2 gaskets I have plenty of room to re-torque them if they leak without bottoming out the valve cover on the head.
I may be crazy going through all this trouble. But the results for me are worth it. See below. No leaks, no oil, no scuzz.
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