If your exhaust manifold to head joint leaks, then the main culprit is the steel-asbestos-steel gasket... not the manifold/ header/ what-have-you.
The fix is the triple-laminate stainless steel gaskets for the 910 Turbo engine. First, there was a double-laminate, and that's all LCU (Lotus Cars USA) brought to North America. It was a marked improvement. Then there was the triple-laminate which doesn't seem to have made it out of the UK. California Lotus specialist, JAE, has had their own version of the triple laminate made, and it's far less expensive then the Lotus version. Put either the Lotus or JAE version in, they don't leak, end of story. I've even re-used them multiple times, and they don't leak.
The Lotus version is crimped together, while JAE's is held together with three eyelets in 'ears' spaced around the perimeter. On some manifolds, one of the JAE eyelets will interfere in one position. If you run into that, just cut off the eyelet in that one position. Once the gasket is installed, the eyelets are redundant anyway.Last edited on 01-21-2017 11:22 pm by Esprit2
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