another header leak

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THE STEVE

THE STEVE

"part-time wheelman"
Joined
Nov 23, 2009
Messages
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Location
springville, indiana
i got a 360 in my duster and the headers leak no matter what. when i installed my cheapo flowtech headers a few years ago i put them on the big belt sander at work and made them true. the head mating surface was clean and true as well. my boss told me to use high temp rtv but i didnt. instead i used the cheap gaskets that came with the headers. they blew out within a month. then i installed a set of the standard felpro gaskets, same thing. they blew out in no time. then i bought the copper mr gasket gaskets and they didnt seal up at all from the get-go. should i try doing the rtv method? i read about a gasket that everybody on here was recomending (cant remember off the top of my head. it started with an "R"). also, my collectors are leaking too. the jackhole that did my exhaust bent the crap out of the flanges over tightening them. is there a remedy for that other than new flanges? thanks.
 
Over tightening the center two bolts on the header? Well, bad news, it's close to impossible (At least IMO that is) to straighten them out with heat and a hammer.

Also, you belt sanded/ground down the header flange? Big mistake since the raised welded rae is designed to press into the gasket for a interference seal.

On the collectors, same deal if there over tightened. Though you can try double and tripling up on gaskets to seal them up.

IMO, the best thing you can do is bite the bullet and get new headers and a Jegs/Summit exhaust. The cheap headers and the inexpensive exhaust @ approx under $250 is a great combo, sounds really good, nice and muscular.

Do a search here for a few of them having been done. Vid's and pictures are around here.
 
You might want to try the ROL header gaskets. They are graphite faced and good up to 2100*, steel cored and reuseable. We run them on both our race cars and have had no problems. One thing we do is, run a bead of high temp RTV around the openings and let it tack up before installing and torquing them. We then let them cure for 24 hours and then retorque them before firing the cars up. Just a thought for you, I hope it helps.
 
had aset of the cheap os one time, same prob, i took them off and and took a flat file and held it flat and worked the head flanges just a little to true them up, it shows where the high and lows are, then cut the piece that connect the tubes tobether with a hacksaw or recip saw, one cut in between cylinders in case its not all true it will have some give to adjust true, then i put a small bead of high temp rtv on the head area and smoothed it out , then the header side, and then put the copper gasket in there and tightened it up a little at a time to make it pull even , or you can smooth it on the gasket itself, on the collector iran a good wide bead on it to connect to pipes and tightened it up, in my case it worked pretty good at both places and i was happy, but no two cars ae the same, check to see if a tube may be hiiting something not letting it pull up good and seal, i think i had to use a ball pin on mine a little, nothing bad, just a little, hope this helps, good luck:blob:
 
thanks guys. ill give it some thought. ill try one more time to seal them up. but i think before long ill just buy a quality header.
 
the problem with cheap headers is the flange is thin(5/16) and warp easily. good headers will have 3/8" thick ground flange, the tubes will be slightly inset with full perimeter welds on both sides. i have headmans on my truck(already there when i bought it) and the passenger side leaked like hell at the two center dumps. cut the flanges, put hi temp copper rtv and copper header gaskets and tightend the crap out of the bolts. no more leaks. also for collecter gaskets i use dead soft aluminum to conform to the irregularties. no leaks there either. my .02 mike t
 
ive used percy's dead soft aluminum gaskets with great results. they will seal anything.
 
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