Sealing valve cover baffle plates
 

I have read several places that most people seem to silicone the valve cover baffle plates back on since they were silicone form the factory. I have modified my baffles, drilling drain holes and opening all passages and ports and added chore boy scrubbers. With all the additional holes in the baffle plates it seems pointless to have the baffle plates sealed against the valve cover.

Is it OK to just install the baffle plates with no silicone / RTV? Screws will be installed with locktite.

is it really that hard to add a little silicone when you re assemble

I think it would be ok without silicone. There are a fair amount of screws to seal it well. If there were gaping gaps it might be wise to use silicone. It is not that difficult to remove if you find its consuming too much oil after the fact, its not like pulling the eng. I did mine with a little ultra black and it seems to have held very well.

Use the silicone.

Have any of you guys modified your baffled chambers and added scrubbers to make the catch cans work better? Seems odd to seal these plates if half of the modifications are adding holes to allow oil to drain out. Some even just run half plates.

All of my plates fit very well and I have no gaps.

I only enlarged the internal connecting holes/passages.

I ended up not being lazy and pulled the baffle plates to put a little RTV on the sealing edges.