And honestly... it's not as hard as you'd think.
Make sure to first very well familiarize yourself with everything you're looking at and decide what has to be taken off in order to remove the manifold. In my case we started with air cleaner, hoses (thermal vacuum, brake assist, alternator etc), carburetor. Most of the hoses get pushed off to the sides not fully removed. Take pictures try to remember where they go. And keep track of your bolts.
<----- Front and Back ----->
before removing anything
Next up was the upper radiator hose that covers the thermostat on the front end of the manifold. It also has a couple hoses and two bolts on it, and will need the gasket replaced. Drain the radiator into a buck (~3 litres of fluid ish) by opening a release valve on the bottom corner (for 78 firebird it's driver's side, half turn) and stick a sponge into the thermostat hole to soak up whatever is in there (will take 4 or 5 times) and wring it into the bucket.
Last thing to come off the manifold was the distributor. You have to turn it to top dead center and the first cylinder so you know which way it's pointing when you put it back on. Use a 5/8 wrench to turn it from the bottom center wheel. On mine I haven't found the TDC markings at all.
There's 12 bolts holding the manifold on including 2 on the bracket for the accelerator spring and 2 in the bracket holding the kickdown cable; both on the driver side. Undo them and pull it off straight up, tipping the front up once you've cleared everything.
There was all kinds of crud in my motor unfortunately. Just burned up gunk and oil. Being careful not to get any in the ports, I used screw drivers and my fingers to scrape it off and get it all out. Actually helped quite a bit.
Make sure your bolts are also clean. I didnt apply any locking tape or silicone to them, Just made sure they weren't too oily. We flipped the new manifold over and cleaned the ports with acetone to remove any residue and oil. Also, screwed in both TVS vacuum switches.
We scraped clean the surfaces of the heads, wiped them down with acetone, and applied a coat of Permatex Indian Head Gasket Shellac Compound to the surface as well as the back of the intake manifold gasket. After letting it set and get tacky for a minute, lined it up and pressed it into place, so that it would stick and stay in place when we set the new manifold. I did a bit of research and discovered "the Right Stuff" was really well recommended over any of the other silicone gasket makers, and used this between the front and back water ports (instead of the rubber supplied with the gaskets) and around all 3 on each side. We then placed in the new manifold.
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