Better Exhaust Gaskets

[DaveW]

Originally Posted by Cp1

though as an alternative i picked up a big 12"x30" sheet of exhaust gasket material from napa for about $25. which is composed of high temp fibre material with a metal core sandwiched between and have had great luck using it for all of my exhaust gaskets everything from block to manifold, manifold to turbo, turbo to downpipe, downpipe to midpipe etc. the only draw back to using this is that you have to cut it yourself which if your not good at using tinsnips can be a pain in the ass. for me no problem but im sure a lot of people could really go either way.

I bought a sheet of what NAPA had (FelPro ProRamic 2499), supposedly to be used for exhaust gasket applications, like you did. I gave both it and the Remflex material a test with my heat gun (~1400F). The Remflex material was unaffected. The FelPro material smoked, smelled like burning paper, and turned brittle and black. Maybe the NAPA stuff I bought was not the same as you bought. What was yours called? Did it have a part #?

On the subject of the Remflex gaskets, here are my results:

I installed two of these in my RB dual-tip CB (one between the stock cat and the CB, and one in the CB middle joint). The Remflex instructions say to compress the gaskets ~50%, from the initial 1/8" to 1/16" thick. This took ~40 ft-lb of torque on each of the 4 bolts involved (2 stock rear cat nuts, and 2 7/16" RB mid-flange bolts), even though the contact area was much less from the RB flange to the cat flange.

After driving ~35 miles,with several full-throttle power applications, I rechecked the gaskets and bolt torques. The gaskets seemed perfect, with absolutely no sign of leakage or distress. The bolts had loosened a few ft-lb, so I re-torqued them (despite the Remflex claim that re-torquing is not necessary) to the 40 ft-lb and used wicking Loctite on the nuts.

So far, so good.