Intake gasket questions

[jefferias]

Hi all, hope you can help me out.  Been helping my bro put an engine in his blazer and we were putting the intake on.  he was questioning me about the rear port metal restrictors with a small hole drilled in them. i told him its fine and just leave them, i used the same gaskets on the same era motor in my truck with no problems after 2 years.  but after reading and talking with others im confused now?  we both have 87-95 350's.   we also both have "old style" waterpumps 1982 and 1984.  i guess my questions are

            1) are the 87-95 waterpumps reverse rotation compared to our old ones.
            2) do we use the restrictor plates on the gasket for our "old" waterpumps

[Captkaos]

1) depends if the motor has a serpentine 1 belt system
2) the restrictor is for the EGR/Heat riser crossover and has nothing to do with the waterpump.

[jefferias]

we both have v-belt setups.  neither of us are running egr.  maybe i worded this wrong..  at the back of the intake gasket(towards the firewall)  both ports are blocked with a metal insert with a coolant hole drilled thru them, and the intake manifold has the ports there to accept coolant.  sorry if this sounds dumb im extremely confused.