Injector Replacement!
Ah ha! There's the answer! Wasn't thinking of that. I guess it wouldn't matter if you used a straight stud and sandwiched them together on the same torquing sequence, however if you were to do an injector replacement you'd have to regasket the fuel rail to lower intake. As for separate torque, on my 94 the upper, lower and fuel rail are all aluminum. I wondered about the later models which are plastic (God knows why... WTFF????) but I noticed in photos I've seen there's a metal sleeve, bolster, to keep from over compressing the plastic, so I can't see a prob on either. When I go back with it I'm gonna skip the stupid E7 torx socket and just use a stud socket to torque the studs back in... solves the problem of replacing the buggered up fasteners.
I ran a bead of Permatex across the same spot, around the coolant ports and on each end of the lower, which was recommended in the gasket kit instructions I had.
I used to be in charge of the small fleet of trucks and trailers at my dad's shop before I had a bad wreck back in 97, I spun an early model Explorer around backwards with my bike, he was drunk and whipped a left, hit me head on, I left a 15' skidmark before kissing his grille doin' 50mph! My skills are mostly old school and this is the first time I had the "pleasure" of doing an EFI intake , in my ignorance I didn't use any lube on the o-rings at all and shaved one in half... was spewing fuel so bad it filled the pockets of the lower intake and formed a 2'-3' puddle under the truck before I realized it was leaking! Looked up a how-to and found a post recommending Vaseline, worked like a charm! I wouldn't recommend oil, when I did my wife's Isuzu fuel pump (TOTAL PITA!!) the o-ring was really stubborn and I didn't have anything handy, so I swiped some off the dipstick, made the o-ring swell for some reason. Maybe fresh oil would be no prob, but used oil off the dipstick was a bad idea, or it was crap materials in the o-ring (good neoprene shouldn't have any prob with any type of fuels or oils).
Thanks for the thoughts!
Peace!