I put my full race manifold back on with a new gasket. At 1st there was a noticeable leak. Sounded like a tractor. I tightened all the nuts back down. It got pretty quiet (no tractor sound). However when I use a piece of garden hose to check I can pick up noise (more than anywhere) under the 2nd runner from the left. Despite tightening the 3 nuts as far as I dare I cant seem to get it any quieter while listening with the hose.

I'm scheduled to be tuned on Friday at Buschurs. Will a leak get picked up while on the Dyno?
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How long do you suspect the leak has been there? If the manifold wasn't bolted down correctly, you could have chewed up a gasket.

 

Probably about 15 secs. As soon as I heard the sound I shut it down and started tightening the nuts down. Car hasn't moved out of my garage.

 

Did you reuse the old gasket or new oem one?

I guess if you torqued down all the bolts in proper order at proper torque specs, then I would remove the manifold and see if the flange is straight. Also, make sure the mounting points on the head are clean of any dirt, old gasket material or anything of that sort.

That's all I can think of. Maybe someone else will chime in.

 

Brand New Gasket. Everything was cleaned up before putting back on. Almost wondering if the #2 runner is warped a little. Started it up this morning and it "squeaked" for a little bit then went away after about 15 secs or so.

 

This would be entertaining. Run some Seafoam in a vacuum line and see where it leaks from lol

 

^i dont follow what your suggesting the op to do?

op take the car out for a drive... if the car has horrible response such as slow spool up and horrible boost recovery ( in between shifts boost drops and turbo has to respool) then chances are you still have an exhaust leak. if you torqued the bolts to spec and you still hear a leak, first thing i would check is the gasket. with the manifold off take a straight edge and check the manifold flange to be sure it is straight.

 

Well I pulled the car out yesterday and let it run for a bit. I torqued a few of the nuts again once the manifold was heated up. It seems that the leak is almost virtually gone now. I don't want to do any pulls until I get the car tuned up. I swapped turbos from a black to a red.

 

It was more of a joke/free bump I guess. The seafoam would smoke where ever the leak was plus smoke out the neighborhood.

 

if you decide to take it off again, some gasket silicone on either side of the gasket wouldn't hurt either!

 

Thx Tony

 

^Do not do this! Adding silicone sealant on either side of the gasket will greatly increase the chances if not certainly cause a leak! You'd be changing the distribution of the load on the gasket, most importantly at the sealing area. Let the gasket do what it was designed to do.

 

Looks like what was happening was 1 of my studs was too long (probably turned out) and it was hitting my tubular manifold. I decided to go the easy route and just cut the bold. I was then able to turn everything down tight. Exhaust is pretty quite now.