I had a snapped manifold bolt on the lower front which i removed. This required me removing the lower half all together.

Now, after a couple minutes of warming up, oil starts burning in the engine bay and slowly dribbles from behind the back of the lower manifold.

I've had a look with a mirror, even taken the top half off for closer examination, but I cant seem to find where it's coming from.

There is a little section that was cast out on the block at the back, about 20mm from center towards the drivers side that fills with oil. And with the mirror, I can see a lot of the rubber gasket from the back of the block to manifold.

Is there any chance the gasket's not sealing properly? It was really bad last night, with a huge puddle under the car, ran down the cats/ gearbox etc. but I tightened the lower manifold more today and pushed the breather bung/outlet in properly. It's still there but not as bad.

Any suggestions?

remove that part of the intake and clean the area were the rubber gasket is and replace it, you may have a pinched gasket or some s**t got under the gasket and stopped it from sealing, ether way you will need to replace it..

Did you use RTV? I don't use the rubber seal at all, just a thickish bead of silicone.

Cork for me all the way! It has never failed me.

Ive never had a problem with the RTV only approach.

Whether you use the gasket or not make sure you put plenty of RTV in the corner where the block & the heads meet (both sides of the gasket if you use one).

It turns out the rear rubber seal on the block to manifold was passing. I ditched them and used s*** loads of rtv blue on them instead. No leaks.

As you said, RTV only haha. For the record, I did replace the gaskets when i took the manifold off originally.
BUT.......
I took it for a test drive, and the f***er stalled on me, wouldn't start for like 15 minutes. And when I got it home, there was a bit of foam on the dip stick, foam on the bottom of the filler cap and the coolant is looking dirtier. Along with steam coming out the dipstick pipe.
Sound like a/both head gaskets are gone?
Would this cause the dip stick to keep popping up and spraying oil when it's getting a thrashing?

yep ....did it get an airlock and overheat after you did the manifold mate ?
do a stall test on it take the header tank cap off chuck your foot on the brake and try and take off ...loading the motor up if water pours out the header tank it means your losing compression into the cooling system

thats 1 test or give it a compression test , water in oil or vice versa

Mat not be head gasket, could be one of the water passages from the manifold to the heads/block is not sealing, and as such water has gotten into the valley and down to the sump.
Brett

Nah was all good. It's a manual so was to hard to do the load test. Did a comp test and the motors shagged. Full rebuild with big parts list.

The water in the oil turned out to be the gasket on the lower manifold. It was new, drove it for 30 mins, then took it off and reused the gasket. it wasn't sealing.
The crankcase was pressurizing though, made 60 psi on number 5 cylinder. the rest vary in 20 odd percent as well. so as a conclusion. Rebuild.

Just in case you didn't already know mate, torque all 12 of your lower inlet manifold bolts in two stages so that there is nil distortion of those pesky inlet gaskets. All the best on your new engine!

Yeah, I do all gaskets in 3 stages. It becomes habbit when you're a mechanical fitter haha. Cheers dude. thanks everyone for your help.