Inlet Manifold Leak

[FatBoy]

Hi,

I'm now on my 4th set on inlet manifold gaskets on my 427. It isn't a serious leak, but I occasionally get steam from the right exhaust for a short period until the engine is thoroughly warmed up.

The joint is weeping into the #1 cylinder inlet port. I've tried various gasket manufacturers, but they all seem to creep eventually, resulting in the leak.
I don't use the front and rear cork gaskets, so they're not preventing it from seating fully. The heads are CNC ported Edelbrocks, as is the inlet manifold.

What is the consensus on the best gaskets to use. I'm probably going to change to a waterless coolant to avoid the pressure build up, which is probably causing the gasket creep.

Thank you,
Paul

[Bobcat]

Paul .... you might ask that question on the FE Forum , Fordfe.com . If you can find Victor Reinz gaskets , try # 15166 for a low riser intake , # 95159 for Edelbrock heads and medium riser intake . My Ponds 482 with Edelbrock CNC heads and Edelbrock dual plane Performer intake uses a Mr Gasket 202A and has had no leaks in over 4 years ( guess I just put a curse on myself now ) .
The 202A`s can be port matched fairly easily .
Don`t know how readily available the VR gaskets are as I heard they have dropped most of the FE gaskets .

Regards ,

Bob

p.s. don`t rely on my (bad) memory for those Victor Reinz numbers , please verify them before ordering .

[wrench87]

Contact KeithCraft, he has intake gaskets that I believe are madeby Commetic, I have a set on my 445fe.

[Dwight]

Cometic

http://www.jegs.com/p/Cometic-Gasket...49498/10002/-1

http://www.netgaskets.com/COMETIC_He...%20c5841-a.htm

You can call Keith Craft. He should have them in stock and know what you need.

Dwight

[Mongoose930]

Hi Paul,

I went through the same thing - I tried standard Fel Pro, Cometic and a few others and everything eventually shifted and leaked. In my opinion, the only good intake manifold gasket for a street FE is the Felpro 1247S3. They have a steel insert and I haven't lost a drop of oil or coolant since installing them. I also used the Motrocraft TA-31 RTV instead of the front and rear cork gaskets. This is what Survival Motorsports uses and I had great luck with both of these products. You can do a search on the Fel Pro P/N and find a few threads on this site.

Here is just one from the FE Forum:

332-428 Ford FE Engine Forum: Which gasket would you use? Felpro 1247-S3 or Mr Gasket 202A?

This is not an easy job so you don't want to do it too many times

Good Luck.

Kevin

[undy]

You need to check the gaps between the intake and the head. You might have a misalignment/uneven gap. No gasket will seal well with that. Place the manifold down without a gasket under it and run a feeler gauge around on both ends and on the china wall. they should be symmetrical. You might have an intake that's been cut wrong.

[saltshaker]

Have you had your intake checked to see if is's straight?
Jon

[zrayr]

Are you putting the gasket on dry in the area of the leak ? If so, try some of the permetex thermostat & water pump gasket sealer. It is superior to every other type of RTV. Your idea of a waterless coolant is just a bandaid, and has little chance of success anyway. Your better off with another strategy.

Z.

[Gaz64]

Originally Posted by undy

You need to check the gaps between the intake and the head. You might have a misalignment/uneven gap. No gasket will seal well with that. Place the manifold down without a gasket under it and run a feeler gauge around on both ends and on the china wall. they should be symmetrical. You might have an intake that's been cut wrong.

Originally Posted by zrayr

Are you putting the gasket on dry in the area of the leak ? If so, try some of the permetex thermostat & water pump gasket sealer. It is superior to every other type of RTV. Your idea of a waterless coolant is just a bandaid, and has little chance of success anyway. Your better off with another strategy.

Z.

I agree with both of the boys above.

A gasket never fails on it's own.

It's a uneven clamping issue, intake not machined at same angle as the heads, or the two intake faces aren't parallel end to end.

As stated above, fit the intake to bare heads and the abnormality will show up from a feeler gauge test.

[RICK LAKE]

Fatboy Couple of ideas I have and you need to check first,
1 Was the heads or block milled? Are all these parts new when the motor was built?
2 Need to pull drain the motor and pull the intake bolts out and check the angles of both heads and intake manifold sealing surfaces. Check in here for another thread about limit for sticking a feeler gauge between the 2.
3 4 th set of gaskets, Did you try HigH-tAC SEALER? Spray on a couple of coats and let dry. Spray on a lite coat and install on the heads. Center the holes on the heads. All surfaces must be cleaned. get another person to help center manifold on motor. install studs in the heads on all 4 corners around coolant passages. Rest of holes can be bolts with washers. Go in 5 pound incromints of torqueing down manifold. I think the spec is 35-38 ft pounds. Allow this to cure for 24 hours. Start motor and run for couple of minutes and let cool. Do this a couple of times (3) . Retorque manifold bolts and nuts. Go road test and recheck. If you still have a leak the manifold is porous. need to pressure test and seal or weld area to seal. If this problem happens, you might want to sent the manifold here to Joe Craine and let him works his magic for repairs and porting. Does great work. Good price and the part looks like jewelry.
You already use RTV gasket. Stay with th silver color stuff and give it 24 hours to cure.
What is the material of the heads and block? Aluminum and iron? Aluminum and Aluminum? Iron heads and aluminum block? Here's the thing there are different expandsion ratios of these metals heating up. This may also cause the creeping of the gaskets. Retorque will only work 2-3 times. Rick L.

[FatBoy]

Hi all,

Thank you everyone for the detailed advice.

In response to some of the questions:

The block is an original iron 427 S/O ('67 I think). The heads and intake are aluminium Edelbrock items. The engine was built by Bill Parham at Southern Automotive, who also CNC ported the heads and intake, which were new.

I don't think there is a porosity issue because the leak only manifests after a period of time e.g. 1-2 years.

I used the silver/grey RTV on the head side of the gaskets only (I read somewhere that was the correct thing to do, but not sure why ).

I'll pull the manifold and check all faces for straightness as suggested.

Opinion seems to be split between Cometic and Felpro gaskets. I've used Felpro on two previous occasions, but not the ones with a steel core. I've also tried Mr Gasket.

Thanks again. I'll report back when I've pulled and checked the intake.

Paul

[mrmustang]

Originally Posted by FatBoy

Opinion seems to be split between Cometic and Felpro gaskets. I've used Felpro on two previous occasions, but not the ones with a steel core. I've also tried Mr Gasket.


Paul

Paul,

There were some issues with Edelbrock intakes a few years back, never advertised or brought to light in a public manner, but handled internally at Edelbrock. With that said, you might want to find a new intake that you can check measurements with.







I'll leave it at that





Bill S.

[jhirasak]

Have you checked to make sure that none of the manifold bolts are bottomed out before the gaskets are fully compressed? This can be easily done when the manifold is being test fitted to the engine without gaskets to check manifold gaps. It is just a precaution that could explain the cause of the stated problem.

Cheers,

John

[FatBoy]

Originally Posted by jhirasak

Have you checked to make sure that none of the manifold bolts are bottomed out before the gaskets are fully compressed? This can be easily done when the manifold is being test fitted to the engine without gaskets to check manifold gaps. It is just a precaution that could explain the cause of the stated problem.

Cheers,

John

Good point and worth checking, although I'm pretty confident that they all pull up on the manifold okay.

Thank you,
Paul

[RICK LAKE]

Fatboy You said you had the heads ported. This could be the problem. It very easy to grind too much out. If the intake was also match proted to the gasket opening, I will bet that there is not enough material to properly seal the ports OR the #1 port is crack and coolant is coming through the port wall. There is not alot of extra materail to grind away on FE heads. You might want, like others have said is pull the intake and heads and have them pressure tested. You are on the other side of the pond. Not sure who you would go to there. We have a couple of guys here that could do this here. Rick L.

[FatBoy]

Thank you for your consideration Rick.

The heads were CNC ported by Bill at SA, so it is probably less likely that the porting has broken through as it would be a problem on all of his ported heads I would have thought.
I'm going to take the manifold off and I'll have a good look down the ports and I'll report back if I find anything.

Thanks again,
Paul

[damage]

Fat boy,

What pressure radiator cap are you running? My Cammer leaked like a biatch then I changed from 20 psi (supplied with my car) to a 15 psi cap and it stopped everything.

[FatBoy]

Originally Posted by damage

Fat boy,

What pressure radiator cap are you running? My Cammer leaked like a biatch then I changed from 20 psi (supplied with my car) to a 15 psi cap and it stopped everything.

I don't know, I'll check, but that was my logic for considering waterless coolant because it runs in an unpressurised system.

I accept the "bandaid" comment made earlier, but it can't hurt either.

Paul

[FatBoy]

I had a look for the Cometic gaskets but I couldn't find any intake gaskets, only cylinder heads.

So I've ordered the Edelbrock 7224 and Fel-Pro 1247-S3 and I'll decide which I'm going to use when I get them in my hands.

I've pretty much made up my mind to go with the Evans waterless coolant as well.

Thanks for the help.

Paul

[FatBoy]

Update. In installed the new Fel-pro gaskets and the ports in the gaskets perfectly matched the CNC ports on the intake and heads, so I suspect that Bill make have used these gaskets as his template.
I also bought a new set of Edelbrock intake bolts, just in case there was an issue there.
So far, they seem to be holding up, although I thought they'd failed again during a road trip in May when steam started billowing out the right exhaust shortly after starting up. But after a few minutes it stopped and has been fine since. After much head scratching, I came to a conclusion that didn't involve the intake gasket.
We were on a road trip and the car had been parked overnight outside the hotel in torrential rain and I suspect that rain had somehow got into the right exhaust, which was facing the oncoming deluge, with the nose pointing slightly downhill and once the engine started getting up to temperature, the water started boiling off until it was all gone.
Possibly grasping at straws, but as the water level didn't drop at all in the header tank and it has been okay since, I can't think of anything else. There is also no sign of water in the oil.
We're heading off to Italy in September and we'll cover around 2,000 miles, so I may order another set of gaskets for insurance.

Thanks again for all our your help and advice.

Paul