We'll see how these Mr. Gasket Ultraseals do. They look nice. They were about $20 from Autozone.

I'll find out in an hour or so if they sealed.

Dan

 

No, I didn't have my camera when I was working on the car.

Dan

 

There is such thing as galvanic reation and it has nothing to do with electrolysis and does NOT require water. It is the basis for the principle of how thermocouples operate. It is why connectors are plated. Read the site I posted.

UL for example requires the ground wires in electical devices to be connected to the chassis with only certain materials so as to not promote corrosion from galvanic reaction. Since I have been away from the electrical engineering side of the manufacturing world for sometime, I have forgotten the UL regulation number refering to the galvanic chart. Perhaps in time I can look it up for you and email it to you.

 

I think any gasket can have probelms if the sealing surfaces aren't good. I blew out some aluminum gaskets before because the bolts came loose.

Mike

 

Well, I started the car up tonight. So far so good. I haven't really "gotten on it" yet though. I think I will take it easy on the throttle for a while. I'm hoping that it will allow the gasket to expand or seal to the fullest. I figure that if I were to give it full throttle now, the gasket may not be seated the best, and it could blow a leak.

I'll go through some heat cycles, tightening down the bolts as I go.

One other thing I considered is if tightening down the Y-pipe too much can pull the headers too much and cause them to pull from the head a little. I have my Y-pipe bolted pretty tight to the collectors and am wondering if this caused the problem in the first place.

On a side note:
One other thing that made a HUGE difference was to raise the exhaust slightly in the rear. The intermediate pipe that goes over the axle must have been touching that cross brace. We welded up a piece of steel under the rubber grommet on the passenger side exhaust hanger. It raised the intermediate pipe up enough to clear the brace. Wow. It was a little loud in the car before. Now it is perfect. The sound comes from the rear of the car now, not the inside and rear. Much better. Something you may want to check.


Dan

 

I have been using FelPro 1406 gaskets on my SLP's since I got them and haven't had a blowout yet. I think they cost me $14 or so

 

These are what I'm going to try. They worked wonders on my brother's SLP's with a warped flang so... who knows.

http://store.summitracing.com/defaul...art=ear-29da3b

Kyle

 

Mine were so bad in the center two ports that I could slide a feeler gauge between the head and gasket. I installed the center gasket that came with my SLP's in addition to the coppers and retorqued a couple of times after some heat cycles and that has worked well althogh I probably still have some pinhole leaks.

 

Well, they are still leaking somewhere, but not as bad as before. The only thing that I didn't reseal was the pimary 1 slip tube. I didn't see any leaks there though.

I think it might be the center two ports on the drivers side again. I wonder if I could double up the copper gasket with the Mr Gasket gasket. It's worth a shot, and should work pretty well.

I only hear it now at a pretty high throttle load. It is better. That's for sure.

I'll get it eventually.

By the way, what are the stock GM gaskets like? They are multi-layered correct? I've heard that they work great with MAC's.

The Earl one's from Summit look nice too.

Dan

 

I'll let you know how the Earl's work, as I just ordered a set. I have the same problem, leak at higher engine load.

Kyle

 

Didn't read all the posts....just got to the first few people using RTV and having no problems.

I thought it was pretty common knowledge that you MUST use RTV Red or Copper to get a seal with copper gaskets. Copper gaskets are used by racers because if you use RTV and tightem'em down they're tight, period...If you take the headers off, peel off the old rtv and rtv'em again, and they're good as new.

We use copper gaskets on 75% of customer cars we install headers on and RARELY have a problem...street or strip.

The key is proper RTV application, proper cleaning of the mating surfaces, and proper bolt sequence and torque.

95% of the guys doing their own headers on these cars don't put enough torque OR EVEN torque on their header bolts because they're a pain to get to. A common cause of leaks is in the center two ports having one bolt torqued as little as 5 ft. lbs. more than the other.

 

And what tools do you guys use to get within 5 ft-lbs of torque between bolts, air tools?

 

Has anyone used percys dead soft aluminum gaskets? I've read other places that they're really good. Anyone have any opions on those, I have a set sitting right next to my headers waiting to be installed and don't feel like pulling them off over and over again getting it to seal.

 

I used copper gaskets on my hookers on my ta and they leak at first,the trick is to let it get to operating temp and then tighten it again.Do this three times, you will be surprised how loose they will be each time! Did this on mine and no leaks going on a year and they wont blow out like a fiber gasket will over time.I have also used the dead soft percy gasket on my buick and they are a great product.

 

I have the Percy's Dead Soft Aluminum gaskets. They are awesome! I am even missing a bolt at the moment on the passenger side and it isn't even leaking!

I would HIGHLY recommend them.

I have a friend who didn't have such good luck with them on his Macs. They seal VERY nicely on my long tube jet-hots though.