My car keeps blowing header gaskets.. Fel-Pro's.... any suggestions?

 

Man I have the same problem, my header bolts constantly come loose and if I don't catch it in time the gasket is toast. My suggestion is to keep a 3/8 short wrench in the car and keep checking them all the time.

 

Percy's Dead Soft Aluminum header gaskets, you won't have that problem anymore. I went through 4 sets of different header gaskets (some even copper), and they all blew....percy's are the way to go

 

fel pro 1406's here and never had any issues...

 

I used the stock exhaust manifold gaskets. You have to snip the ends a little bit, but I haven't had a problem with them yet. I also know of others that swear by the stock gaskets. If you bolts keep coming loose, then get some ARP Grade 8 Header bolts.

 

use stock gaskets.

 

I went through 2 sets of Felpro 1406 gaskets. I'm switching to Percy's this coming spring.

 

i've always used arp 12 point's and never had a issue.. hope you get this issue resolved.. i don't think you guy's are tightening these enough... IMO...

 

Just a thought, you may want to make sure the header flange isn't warped really bad.

 

Agreed. I had the same problem and it turned out the header flange was pretty badly warped, I had to have it sanded flat to fix the issue. You may also want to look into locking header bolts, they've worked well for me.

 

Percy's D-port. $40 for a pair from Summitracing.com

Blew three altogether on the passenger side after a header install. Used the Percy and CONSTANTLY tighten the bolts for a couple of weeks until the bolts would not budge. I got quite good jacking the car up, undoing the tension on the serpentine belt, removing the Alt...

Hint: tie a nice length of string to that openend wrench being used for tightening the bolts. That way you don't waste time looking for it when it slips...

Everything is fine now.

If you are local to the southeast area of PA., you can pick up the extra gasket that is floating around in the garage free of charge....

 

I use Fel-Pro gaskets and smear a little bit of orange high temp RTV around the port, and tighten them down with a set of $3.99 header bolts I got from Autozone. No problems here.

 

I've been running the Fel-Pro 1406s for almost a year now and they haven't caused me any trouble. Maybe you should look into some locking header bolts if your current bolts keep backing out.

 

I got some thick copper gaskets on ebay for like 19.99 and they work great. I got the collector gaskets as well, as i've blown out like 5 sets of those

 

im using stock metal head gaskets on my macs with 1" arp bolts and havent had a problem. re-tightnened them once after a heat cycle and thats it.