The old intake manifold gasket had only been on the car one and one-half years. When I took it off yesterday and examined it, I found that it had repositioned itself. The layers of paper had slid on each other about a quarter inch, making all the intake holes on the head effectively smaller. I assume the shifting helped cause my progressively worse rough warm idle and air leak at the fourth runner. I'm pretty new to all this. What gives? Is this caused by a cheap gasket, too much torque, or maybe both? When I originally installed the gasket, I torqued the nuts to what I thought was good and snug. It was installed dry.

How do you gauge how tight to torque the nuts? I can't get a torque wrench on them all. This time I used a Volvo gasket, but I'm worried that I might have tightened the nuts too tight. I used two fingers toward the end of a 3/8 drive ratchet on the nuts I could reach with a socket, and equal pressure and leverage with a 13 mm wrench on the nuts that I couldn't reach with a socket. I'd say I probably seated the manifold to the gasket, then turned the nuts about 1/4 turn. How does this sound?
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Thanks everyone for the advice. 81 242 Brick Off Blocks, Turbo bars and wheels, B21F, M46; 86 244, B230, 148k , auto.