Gaskets between intake and exhaust manifolds

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Petros
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Re: Gaskets between intake and exhaust manifolds

Post by Petros »

irowiki wrote:How long of an uphill run are we talking?
lets see, ran an old beat 3ac at full throttle from Austin TX, to El Paso at full throttle one hot july day (104 deg at night), almost 4000 ft of elevation gain in 500 miles. Eight hours, only stopped once for gas in Ft. Stockton. quite a climb, but the engine never overheated. I did not damage any gaskets either. full throttle on the engine was only 84 mph, and that was just barley over the speed limit, where you will get passed by just about everyone else on the road. on the steeper climbs the speed dropped to 64 mph, and was really getting passed, even by the big rig trucks.

If everything is working properly these engines will take the abuse. I have seen exhaust manifolds just start to glow a dull red, about 1200 deg F. it will take the heat, the high temp Permatex will not, that was my point. Nothing but a metal gasket will take that, not even the head gasket runs that hot ever.
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c_j
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Re: Gaskets between intake and exhaust manifolds

Post by c_j »

I also separated the intake and exhaust manifolds when I did an engine swap recently. I was a little upset when I found out that it was unnecessary to separate them for what I was doing, and it cost me a few extra hours (broken bolts, etc.).

The short story: I used gasket paper

The long story: I still had the original heat shield which is sandwiched between the 2 manifolds. This metal heat shield had a metal gasket crushed around the inside edges of the opening in the heat shield. I was able to remove this gasket by carefully chiseling and prying it up and out. Now I just had a bare heat shield in my hands. There was a sheet of Fel-Pro 2499 (Fel-Ramic) gasket paper on the shelf. I think it is normally used for making one's own manifold gasket or head gasket. This gasket paper has a layer of metal embedded within it. I cut out 2 gaskets from this sheet. 1 for intake manifold to heat shield, and 1 for heat shield to exhaust manifold. I used no sealant. I had a bit of trouble getting the bolts started which sandwich the manifolds together, as I had already hung the manifolds on the cylinder head and things weren't lining up well. A bit of playing around and torquing here and there and it was done. The gasket combination might have been a little too thick, but that is better than too thin IMO. It has been a month or two, and it seems to be fine so far. I've got Petros' words about retorquing the manifolds ringing in my ears now. I will have to remember to do that soon.

If you do use that gasket paper, I used a punch to make a hole, and then tin snips to enlarge it, and for the small bolt holes, I used an abrasive burr to enlarge them (a carbide burr, but a file might also work). Working with that metal sandwiched in the gasket paper isn't the most fun job, but maybe another member knows a better way to cut out the small holes.
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irowiki
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Re: Gaskets between intake and exhaust manifolds

Post by irowiki »

Ah, so I don't need to worry about beating up a 3AC up a a mountain pass for 10 miles then :lol:
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BrownBadger
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Re: Gaskets between intake and exhaust manifolds

Post by BrownBadger »

Interesting on using the gasket paper. Any thoughts on using both the gasket paper and the original metal gasket? Would this be better or worse than doing just one or the other? Might end up too thick and make the manifold surfaces not flat compared to one another? Thoughts?
c_j
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Re: Gaskets between intake and exhaust manifolds

Post by c_j »

that is true that the thickness of the gasket sandwich will affect how the faces of the intake and exhaust align with each other vertically, but they should remain flush with each other with respect to the cylinder head surface.
as far as reusing the old gasket - and to be clear, I am talking about the crushed metal ring which surrounds the inside edge of the heat shield - I chose not to reuse mine because it was so flat that it didn't have any give left in it, plus there was some corrosion there as well. As I said above, I just removed the gasket ring and kept the heat shield. If you found a different gasket than what I describe then please say so. Hopefully another member will chime in with their thoughts on using this type of gasket paper. I can't give it the full thumbs up because it has not stood the test of time yet.

Petros has a point that the material should be metal. I would not use regular gasket paper, and I only used that Fel-Pro 2499 because it must have some ceramic (high heat) properties plus the metal core.
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