some people will use copper spray and spray a couple light coats on the gasket. I have used it only once when assembling a block/head because the block I was using had the most chewed up cylinders I have ever seen on the top of the shortblock. I honestly didn’t think this motor would hold compression at all and only had 1 day before auto-x started. Low and behold it’s still holding strong (although I wasn’t expecting it to do so). In general I try to stay away from the copper spray because its messy as hell come rebuild time when you gotta get all the old shit off.