My personal experience. I run the Fel-Pro 1200's which are the individual gaskets on the intake ports with no valley pan. I have a ported manifold and ported heads and they are match ported to the Fel-Pro 1200's. The Fel-Pro 1200's have bigger ports than the big metal 1-piece gasket with the valley pan. I have the EGR ports in the heads filled, EGR tower milled off and welded over in my manifold, and the EGR block off plate where the EGR valve was. On a stock motor I would use the big one piece with the valley pan to avoid pulling oil through the PCV valve. With ported heads and manifold I run the Fel-Pro 1200's and I just block off the PCV and put a large breather in both valve covers. Every time I have run without the valley pan it would pull a bunch of oil through the PCV valve. In the future I plan to put in a separator because with the PCV valve blocked I do get a little fuel smell in the car but since it is E85 smell I don't mind it that much. Robert, I wish I had read your post Friday as we could have talked about it at the meet Saturday night. Hope this helps.