I just put them on my car today and The reason why I put them on was because I had a minor leak that was giving me a slight tick, on the passenger side in one of the center ports.

I HAD, stock OEM gaskets, ( 3 piece). I put these on today, and tightened the freakin' crap out of them. I mean really. After I started it up at first, and heard the tick, I shut her down and torqued them like a mother. I'm a really strong guy too, if that helps ( Football Player) so they were as tight as possible.

I have a home-made mechanics stethescope and I tryed to find the tick. I think it's now coming from the center ports on the drivers' side.

Here's my concern. These gaskets are way, way, way thicker than other header gaskets. Could they be making my collectors leak now? I have edelbrock headers, and on the passenger's side it has that flage valve thing, that has a gasket on it. Could this be causing them to leak? I also noticed that if you are not careful, you can bend one of the aluminum sheets backward by accident when you slide them in if you are not careful.....do you guys think this is the prob? I guess I'll fork out the 9.99 for a real stethescope and see where it's coming from.

Anyone have bad experiences with these? Does anyone swear by them?

 

If you've got edelbrock headers I would swear that your collector is leaking.

 

I'd have to agree on that for the most part. I have SLP's with aluminum gaskets and mine don't leak at all. I've even re-used mine a few times. Also, does the ticking get quiter as the car heats up? If not, it's more than likely at the collector.I would look there at this point. You also don't need to get a machanic stethiscope. You can do the same thing buy using a few feet of vacuum line and putting the end near all the ports and the collector.

Good luck.

Oh yeah, I swear by aluminum/copper gaskets, will never go back to paper again.

 

AFter using copper and not getting a good seal, I went back to paper ones. If the aluminum ones are thicker than the paper then that's good because the copper ones were thin. Like said check your collectors too.

 

You should replace all your exh gaskets with the dead soft. The cheap paper collector gaskets are worse then the paper header gaskets, I wouldent doubt there ripped. Did you make sure both the header and head were spotless? Some times even a good gasket wont seal if a tiny piece of old gasket is left on. Also some headers do emmit a ticking sound even if there sealed.

 

You sure its a leak? Not trying to make you look like an idiot, cuz i know you know your stuff, but aren't headers supposed to sound really 'tinny'?

And you could have over-torqued the headers and warped the gasket.

 

The edelbrock headers do not have collector gaskets. they are a flange seal type deal... the only part with a gasket is the air valve thing that came with LG4 and L69 motors on the passenger side.

I think it gets quiter as the car heats up....I drove for 2 hours straight last night....but it still ticked when I revved it up when I parked.

 

I haev an exhaust leak thats I'm chasing now. I replaced a head gasket and in the process switched to the dead soft aluminum header gaskets (no trouble with the old ones). I also have Edelbrock headers and I now have a leak on the driver's side. I haven't determined if it is from the collector or not but the collector was never removed or loosened.

 

Edelbrock headers have a donut gasket type on the collectors. To my best knowledge no one makes a dead soft alumn or copper style donut gasket to them (I've looked before). I was blowing them out every 2 months. I went through about 3 or 4 sets before I finally broke my edelbrock cat back system once I put new gaskets in. It has a crack all the way around the pipe right at the end near the cats. I even heard it split, it was on the a hard launch. My exhaust mechanic rigged up a flexible connection piece between the catback and the cats. Now my system has a little flex to it and I haven't blown out another collector gaskets yet.

 

I do not have collector gaskets. The collectors have a slidable flange that bolts up to the header. One side is rolled to mate to the other surface for a seal.

Also....I did not un-bolt my collectors, or loosen them. I used a scraper to get any old material off the head surface. I was thinking that maybe the extra thickness of the gaskets is causing my collectors to be un-even or something and that is why I have the leak.

 

AHH yours must be a different design than mine. I also have the slideable flanges but mine takes a small donut gasket. I sits around the bottom pipe and when you tighten the bolts the gasket goes in the groove of the header. Sorry about that.

 

Maybe mine is supposed to have the donut gasket? I did not get them new...they were on the car when I bought them. I was kinda surprised that there was no form of gasket when I took them off to swap motors.

CAN ANYONE ELSE THAT HAS EDELBROCK HEADERS CONFRIM THAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE SEALED AT THE COLLECTOR WITH A SMALL DONUT GASKET?????????

 

Although the topic has kind of changed by now, I've had great luck with aluminum gaskets. Also, clean and/or painted heads make a world of difference when looking for header leaks. After a little while, you can see dark stains wherever there is a leak.

 

Do you have TES type header?

 

Not the exact same part as mine... I have 2 seperate pipes since I have 2 cats but heres a pic.

 

TES headers. Smog Legal.
The only difference between mine and the pic is that I have a EFE valve on the passenger side. So the EFE bolts to the header collector and the y-pipe to the EFE.

I just went o autozone and got 2 gaskets. 1 is 2 and 1/2 and the other 2 1/4. I used my homemade stethescope and stuck it down by the EFE today....sounds like that's the culprit.

 

I tried getting gaskets from autozone onced they couldn't get me the right size... the best they could do was a donut gasket made for a bbc exhaust... it was still way too small I about dropped it into the pipe. I ended up finding a exhaust shop in town that would provide the gaskets and change them for 10 bucks!

 

All the ones Ive seen have them or at least the 2 pairs sitting down at the speed shop.

 

So let me get this straight. On BOTH sides at the collector there should be a donut gasket. Is the gasket like any other donut? The ones I bought have 2 holes for the bolts, then a donut.

Is that right, or are they just donuts with no holes for the bolts?

 

There should be a donut gasket in each side. It fits around the outside of the interior pipe on the bottom then when you bolt it up it fits in the recess in the actual header. This seals up the gasket there. From what I remember it's just a donut gasket with no bolt holes... but I don't see why you couldn't use one with bolt holes providing the donut fits in the groove fine and seals up.

JEGS catalog page for TES replacement gaskets (sorry no pics on it)

 

The best thing to use for header flanges is the Copper exhaust gasket silicone stuff. A buddy of mine has TF heads and we've tried everything from crushable copper, aluminum, paper, you name it. The only thing that fixed the header flange leaks was just using that copper gasket maker crap in the tube. It's the only thing that worked on his ride.

Me, I'm using Fel-Pro paper with metal inserts and no leaks as of yet.

 

Sounds like the edelbrocks use the same setup as the SLPs. You've got a flared end on the pipes with a short section welded just inside that, right? That gives a circular recess for the donut gasket to fit. If that's right, what's the outside diameter of that inside pipe? If it matches my SLPs, I could probably find a p/n for you.

 

Are you talking about Ultra Copper RTV sealant? I checked it out today at autozone....says it will handle an intermittent 700 degrees farenheit.

Does it really work that well, not blow out? Can anyone tell me the warmest the collectors/ head-to-header primaries surface gets in degrees?

 

That copper stuff is Ultra high-temp and comes in a bronze color tube and yes, it's the only thing that sealed my buddie's headers! After 200 bucks worth of copper and aluminum gaskets, the only thing that worked was a cheap tube of that copper stuff! And it's still holding after 6 months and going on 7!!!

 

My Edelbrock headers have a dounut gasket at the collector-y-pipe connection.

Also, I use that copper colored gasket maker to seal my y-pipe to cat joint. No problems with it in ~4 months.

 

I pulled the car up on ramps....started it, and got under there with a stethescope and checked for leaks at the collectors and the EFE valve.

NONE. NO LEAKS.

GUESS WHAT?????
The freakin leak was coming from the same place where it was with the old gaskets. The center ports on the passenger side. I think it's because the y-pipe needs to be adjusted cause it's sealed at the top of the header at the center ports but not from underneath. So the header is slanted because the y-pipe is too tight, it's clamped and pulled too far towrd the driver's side header.

I'll take care of it tomarrow. Wish me luck.

 

i have sucessfully got my headers to seal good 2 ways..

the first is to use donut gaskets and spray em with copper exhaust manifold spray stuff...its like a paint kinda....

the other way i bought 2 packs of paper header gaskets.....used rtv to connect them and slapped them on

 

I'm not familiar with edelbrock's headers, but with some heddmans I used to have, it took a little bit of work to get them to seal. When a straightedge was places along the tubes where they are supposed to seal to the heads, they were all tilted slightly different. I had to sand them to make them all lie in the same plane in order to seal better. Maybe something like that could help you if yours are a tube-thru-the-flange design like those heddmans were.