Folks,
I've been wrestling with a small but annoying exhaust leak with my Belanger headers. It seems that no matter how even I torque down the flanges, I keep developing the same leaks in the same areas. I've spent a great deal of time searching old posts on the matter and found people with similiar issues. The solutions ranged from having the flanges re-machined flat ( warped ), installing compressed gaskets, o-rings, copper gaskets, etc. I don't believe my issue has to do with warped flanges, I checked. They've been evenly tightened too many times to count. I decided to take some measurements and have custom copper gaskets made.
I believe that the ID of the these pipes don't line up with the ID of the header pipes. While the flanges line up well, I believe there's an off-set gap of 1/16" - 1/8" that's allowing exhaust to escape through these flanges. I think the trick is finding a gasket with an o-ring to properly seal that 1/4" groove on the ID of the pipe. I'm having custom copper flanges made with an O-ring insert to try and adress this. If anyone is interested in a set of these gaskets, let me know. I'm also having them made for the 3" collector area (pickle) as well. If anyone knows where I can find proper gaskets already made for this application please me know where I can find them. I've looked everywhere but due to the unique measurements on these flanges, standard gaskets from Mr. Gasket and SCE don't fit. None seem to have the o-ring option either.
On a side-note, that orange film inside the pipe came from some octane booster I recently tried. It coated the inside of my exhaust with an orange haze.
- Tony
I've been wrestling with a small but annoying exhaust leak with my Belanger headers. It seems that no matter how even I torque down the flanges, I keep developing the same leaks in the same areas. I've spent a great deal of time searching old posts on the matter and found people with similiar issues. The solutions ranged from having the flanges re-machined flat ( warped ), installing compressed gaskets, o-rings, copper gaskets, etc. I don't believe my issue has to do with warped flanges, I checked. They've been evenly tightened too many times to count. I decided to take some measurements and have custom copper gaskets made.

I believe that the ID of the these pipes don't line up with the ID of the header pipes. While the flanges line up well, I believe there's an off-set gap of 1/16" - 1/8" that's allowing exhaust to escape through these flanges. I think the trick is finding a gasket with an o-ring to properly seal that 1/4" groove on the ID of the pipe. I'm having custom copper flanges made with an O-ring insert to try and adress this. If anyone is interested in a set of these gaskets, let me know. I'm also having them made for the 3" collector area (pickle) as well. If anyone knows where I can find proper gaskets already made for this application please me know where I can find them. I've looked everywhere but due to the unique measurements on these flanges, standard gaskets from Mr. Gasket and SCE don't fit. None seem to have the o-ring option either.
On a side-note, that orange film inside the pipe came from some octane booster I recently tried. It coated the inside of my exhaust with an orange haze.
- Tony