Ebay Headers Gasket, Please Help Options

[BonzaiCelica]

So about a 1.5 years ago i bought some headers for my st celi for about $125. After having them installed for almost a year the gasket that sits between the header manifold and the downpipe decied to tear away. and i was stuck with a broken gasket. when i was taking it apart to get the broken gasket and 2 of the 3 bolts broke in half. Im assuming that since the bolts were such crappy material they started losening up over time and thus allowed a leak in the gasket.

I tried contacting the store and they said i couldnt get a gasket unless i bought new headers all together. So i went to a performance shop and got the mr gasket material that is made to make gasket, and then cut out the shape of the gasket. I then got the 2 metal plates that go on top and bottom of the material and decided to make my own one. I grabbed silicon maker and used it as paste to stick everything back together. Then i put about 25 pounds on it would be flat. It looked brand new. Also bought some grade A bolts from Napa so i knew they were the best. I installed it and about 5 months later i had another broken gasket. Now the orange silicon stuff says it can only withstand 650 degrees of heat. I'm sure headers get up to 1000 degrees and more.

Now how should i go about fixing this problem. Im thinking of not even using the orange gasket maker gel. Should i just make two of the same gaskets with the material and bolt everything back up without using any gel to stick them together.

My neighbor who is a mecanic looked everywhere for a similar gasket but wasn't able to find anything. What should i do?? On the bottom is the pic of the original gasket and the two gaskets that i made yesterday. and this link is to some gaskets from a honda accord which is from the same website should i just buy this and be done with it.

http://stores.ebstores.us/Items/gkthp92s-0...%2095%2096%20SI

[Bitter]

you need exhaust manifold gasket material. its going to be a double sided graphite gasket with a middle laywer of waffled aluminum or steel. what you used was paper gasket for like...an intake manifold.

http://azcustomcars.com/product.php?productid=56790 thats what you need.




also, if you look around hard enough you can find that gasket, its almost identical to a 90-95 subaru legacy gasket as well as the gasket for a vw micro-bus.

This post has been edited by Bitter: Nov 28, 2008 - 12:16 PM

[BonzaiCelica]

so that stuff isnt for headers dam i thought it was,, and the mecanic across the street didnt even say anything. So i should just buy that material and cut out the shape for it. Is it really hard to cut since you said it has some metal material in between. Or should i just go ahead and try to buy the gasket from that link i put up??

Some header manufactures use a belt grinder to grind the weld-beads flat, sometimes instead of being flat they end-uphaving a high and low spot. The weld-bead must be completely flat orsealing problems can occur and the gasket will fail (blow-out) prematurely because uneven clamp-load applied to the exhaust gasket.

I got that info from the link. Is this the main source off my problem?

http://go.mrgasket.com/pdf/MRGTechTip.pdf

This post has been edited by BonzaiCelica: Nov 28, 2008 - 5:27 PM

[Bitter]

mine has held up fine, i've had it apart and together 3 times using the same gasket.

[BonzaiCelica]

mine has held up fine, i've had it apart and together 3 times using the same gasket.

alright then, Thanks for your help

[BonzaiCelica]

by the way. the bolts that i was buying were the good ones and in fact the gasket was not the problem. I figured out today that i actually bought the wrong nuts. I just bought the lock thread nuts that dont become loose at all and that was my main problem before. I just put the two gaskets together on top of each other without that silicon gel. The ones in the first picture. I'll see how they withstand...