Header Leak??

DartVadar said
They were just the ones that came with an engine gasket kit that I had, I can't imagine that they are terribly good ones, probably the lower end ones. Definitely not ultra seal ones. And the only reason that I put the copper RTV on was because that's what the instructions said with the headers.

I have a set of dougs headers, so pretty good headers, the flange seemed nice and straight when I installed them, and I used some ARP header bolts, I don't know if they are locking or not.

When I broke the cam in I never checked how tight they were, but heard no leak (doesn't mean it wasn't there) and it only started leaking when I really started to get on it, so the headers were getting nice and hot, and I assume when they cooled off they loosened up, because when I tightened them some were pretty loose.

Dougs headers are among the good ones and if dougs says you should use some RTV then sure follow it they know there stuff,the only bad thing i ever experienced with the UltraSeal gaskets are that they sometimes becomes very attached to the parts they are supposed to just seal and maybe that will be less of a problem following dougs instructions.

My coment about not using anything but the gasket is based on seeing to many people bandaiding warped flanges by using a stack of gaskets and all sorts of weird sealers.

Another possbility is that headergaskets can develop a leak if you have plenty of power and a very restrictive exhaust but thats a rare problem.

sometimes you just need to retourque the headerbolts after a while and sometimes they seem to stay put with no isues almost forewer.