I have gone through the stinky exhaust and the valve cover leak as well as many other leaks with my bird.
Best advice I got for the valve covers was silicon the gaskets to the covers and lay them flat on a counter to dry. Then when installing them finger tight and all the way around then another 1/4 turn, no more then that. I did my last set that way and it worked great, no leaks at all. That burnt oil on the exhaust was really bad, would burn my eyes.
With the stinky exhaust, I had a 110 lsa ultradyn cam that had some low manifold vacuum. Around 10 to 11. Not really low but had nozzle drip bad in my Cliff Q-jet. Only had to fire it up for a second in the garage to stink the whole house up and my clothes. I went with a roller cam on a 114 LSA and now have a smooth idle and 14-16 vacuum, not to mention much more power. I also had my heads done at the same time. My plugs were all ways getting gummed up. I had those crappy umbrella shields on the valves and my engine builder mentioned they just pump oil into the valve stem. They were replaced with Viton seals and its a night day difference.
I still have a little stink to the exhaust but nothing like I had before. I hope to get a A/F gauge and tune it a bit better and see if that helps.
