so , is there supposed to be a gasket there ? im talking about the passengers side exhaust manifold on a 88 LO3 , the drivers side goes all the the way to the to the Y-pipe , whereas the pass. side has a small mettal piece that goes between the manifold and the flange " becayse the manifold just cuts off and has no taper for the flange . any help would be nice

Technically it's a cast iron spacer with tabs to keep it between the two manifold studs. Walker 31533 is supposed to be a service replacement, but if at all possible you'd be further ahead to reuse the stock cast iron spacer.

so ... no gasket just nuts and studs should be real tight "not to the point of being stripped obviously . " ?

Assuming you have the correct cast iron spacer, there's no gaskets needed.

The TBI manifolds are the same as the old carbed manifolds. On the old carbed cars, GM used a vacuum operated flapper valve to help the engine heat up faster on hot days. When they did away with the valve, they had to use a spacer to make up the difference. The Walker part number I posted earlier is what you use if you've lost the spacer. It's just a donut gasket that's flat on one side and tapered on the other. But technically it's not nearly as thick as the correct spacer.


That's the spacer from a HO car, the TBI spacer is about the same, just slightly smaller diameter. The other side has the taper that mates up to the Y pipe.

correct ! , only the drivers side taper meets up with the Y-pipe and the pass. side does not . i still have the iron spacer , so it shouldnt leak right , because i have smoke in my engine bay due to this leak . and the noise does not help when trying to adjust valves .