OK I spent 4 months with this car tore apart for an over the winter frame-on redo, was worried about the age of the frame but found nothing besides suface rust and it's great now, removed everything I could and cleaned, rechromed or painted it.  Put engine back together - started immediately but as I backed ithe vette out and parked for a minute I saw puddles of oil forming under the engine.  I shut her off and got under there and the only oil tracks I could find went back to one corner of the a new valve cover I installed.  Nothing seemed loose - infact it was on there pretty tight.  Question - if I didn't seat those new covers on the gaskets properly could it leak that much that fast? The engine ran less then three minutes.   I'm thinking I did something wrong installing the new valve covers - is there a trick to getting those covers on right?  Also I have those chrome guards that support the spark plug wires but sit over the headers - they are designed to be supported by being mounted under the valve cover screws - should those go between the engine and the gasket - between the gasket and the valve cover, or on between the valve cover and valve comer bolts?

The wire supports should go between the covers and the bolts....you didn't stick them between the covers and the heads, did you?
In order for you to have that much oil leak out of the VCs that quick,. they would have to not be sealing for some reason. The oil really shouldn't be filling up that area anyway, unless the drainback holes are stopped up.
But...if you did happen to have something UNDER the valve covers(like the wire supports) when you put them on, they would probably leak quite a bit. I've seen wires get stuck under there, or even old pieces of gasket.
Hope this helps...

Welllllll I just thought they looked a little better under the covers  rather then over them.  Joel - you want to know the definition of a crapty feeling? - its having everything pristine and then having it all get sprayed with an oil leak for two minutes, once I got the car pushed and raised up it was pretty gross.  Thanks for the "heads up" advice. Ken

Don't feel bad, Ken...I've done worse!
The good thing is, it should clean up pretty easily. But you're right, it do suck!

There's gotta be a lil something wrong with us 383 stroker guys.

It sounds to me by what you wrote that you kinda did everything in a hurry? The first thing I would recommend to anyone doing any kind of rebuild of any degree is to TAKE YOUR TIME and do it once and do it right. You'll save yourself time in the long-run. Yeah, you could've pinched a wire in there or got something else wedged in or if you used a cork gasket you might've broke a piece of it during installation. Those can be a little on the fragile side. I'm curious as to what you find. Let us know? Good luck, and take your time and be thorough.

 Ken, at lease you know she is oiling good..You'll get her fixed in no time..Terry