Old engines, gaskets and sealants

[geeman237]

By old engines I mean like A series, old Ford Kent/Pinto/Essex, 60’s/ 70’s Triumphs. Almost all mating surfaces use paper gaskets often with a gasket sealer like Blue Hylomar. Nowadays I see a lot of rebuilds using RTV silicone sealant replacing the gasket sealant. To me it’s not necessarily the correct use of an RTV silicone sealant. This Permatex Ultra Black is perhaps a good example. Reading the product info to me it says this replaces a paper gasket. So, coming back to the older engines I mentioned above would they be ok by not using the original paper gasket and instead using a modern gasket maker RTV?
What do you use or do here?

[Krikkit]

As usual it depends! If it's purely to seal oil or water then typically yep no problem.

In some cases the paper gasket sets a tolerance for other parts, in which case it won't be a good replacement.