Hello folks,
I have an 86 iroc with the 305 . It has a bad exhaust leak on the passenger side . I've already put in 2 different sets of gaskets and it doesn't seem to work. I know I'm tourqing them correctly . Each time I remove the gasket you can clearly see that it's the passenger side cylinder closet to the firewall.. what's going on here ? Any ideas or suggestions will be appreciated .

 

Was it OK before? Meaning did the leak recently start, so you know it was OK before?

did you run a tap through the hole and clean it out?/New exhaust bolts? That one could be hanging up and not torquing down.

Any chance it's a cracked manifold and not a torquing/gasket issue?

Did you remove the rest of the exhaust from the manifolds or is it all still bolted together. I did this one time with my headers. Thought I'd cheat some new gaskets in place with the exhaust still bolted up. Didn't seal. had to actually REMOVE the y pipe from the headers so they were free. When I bolted em down, you could see they didn't mate up perfectly with the y pipe. had to go downstream and loosen and tweak to make it all play nice. Not sure why, but heat cycles, hot cold, bumps and lumps...who knows.

last but not least, Remflex gaskets are a bit thicker and are supposed to seal really well. I'm using em with no issues. This doesn't solve the actual problem, whatever it is, but it's food for thought.

 

My manifolds are only a year or so old so I don't think it's those. I'll try unbolting some downstream items when I get the Earl's header gaskets. If I can't get it fixed I'm just going to put it away for the winter early since I plan on getting a top end kit before next spring anyway

 

I've seen new(er) trucks with leaking manifolds due to warpage. Particularly motorhomes (yikes..don't get me started). They can be lightly plained to true them up. Check the surface with a good straight edge (not a wooden ruler), or have your machine shop do it.

 

Post a photo of a failed gasket.