When I am changing my gasket it is a major PITA to to because the Y pipe wants to push the header so the holes don't line up. I had to pry the header back using my strut tower brace as a leverage point to line the holes up and start the bolt. Damn that sucked, and I still have one side to go! Anybody got tips on how to change the header gasket when the header doesn't want to stay put. It's funny because I bought these Percy's aluminum gasket because they had hooks on the end. Little did I know they were for the OUTSIDE bolt holes. When i saw that I was so very pissed off.

All I gotta say is if these Percy's gaskets don't fix my leak I'm gonna castrate whoever at SLP made these dual cat headers.. wish I had longtubes but what can I do

 

do yourself a favor and loosen the bolts to the Y-pipe. It will save you hours of frustration.

As far as blown gaskets,how you tighten them and how often makes a major difference in sealing. When I did mine (I'm going to put this in a text document and cut and pastse one of these days, I've done this so much ) : Tighten the header bolts. Run the car idling for ~5-10 minutes. Tighten the header bolts. Ran the car around the block, getting on it (with open headers I might add...got some stares there), tighten the bolts. Drove it for 2 hours back home (still open headers ) tightened the bolts. Then I tightened the bolts every weekend for about a month or two. Haven't loosened yet. I check them every once in a while, when I remember, but none ever come loose and I never have to worry about it much. The spark plugs, thats another story.

FWIW I used ARP stainless headers bolts, in 3/4" length. Many people have said use stage 8 locking bolts, or use 1" long bolts, but I have yet to have ANY problems and I didn't have to dink with trying to get 8 little tiny lock washers and clips on the bolts in a space that I can't even see.

edit: I used Felpro 1406 gaskets on mine too, no problems and still have the open ends.

 

that's what I plan to do, a 10 minute warmup, then a quick drive tightening both times. It should be good to be with aluminum gaskets after a couple tightenings. With my Felpro 1406 I tightened them literally every time I drove the car for at least a couple weeks and they still leaked badly.

So if I loosed the y pipe I would have to replace the gasket right? I don't want to mess with it since it's all sealed up.

 

you could also try jacking the y-pipe up, that worked for me