Annealing might be possible if you knew what kind of metal the gasket is.

I think carefully spreading the gasket with a knife works reasonably well if the parts you're sealing are fairly flat. It's certainly a good method if you're using the gasket to seal the same two mating parts as before.

Dave

can you give me an update of how this gasket is holding up on your car and how much torque you used? I'm getting ready to put this thing back together

I didn't get much more than those passes and miles, maybe 40 more miles then I destroyed 3rd gear and winter showed up. So, i won't have the car back out for a while.

Did you torque this down to spec or did you just torque it? My brother has my torque bar and hes an hour away

I torqued it down to spec.

17 ft lbs is about as tight as you typically torque spark plugs down to.

According to the RemFlex website and paperwork, they give 2 conflicting instructions:
1) torque to 20 ft-lb (does not take into account how many bolts or the size of the bolts or flange).
2) tighten enough to compress the gasket 50%.

IMO, the second instruction makes much more sense, since it applies to any size gaskets, and any # or size of bolts. That is what I did, and it worked perfectly.