FE Intake Manifold/Gasket Installation

[car4jim]

Thanks for the responses from everyone. It seems the issue with gasket creep is the gasket essentially squeezing out between the two metal surfaces. I can see this is what happened with my intake manifold installation. There seems to be two strategies to avoid this: a) Bond the gasket to the head, or b) use a steel reinforced (composite) gasket. Using an adhesive such as Hi-Tack or Gorilla snot (which I believe is essentially a contact adhesive) to adhere the gasket to the head side of the gasket makes sense. I can see the theory if you bond the gasket to the head surface, then the gasket cannot creep out, assuming the adhesive itself doesn't creep! Makes me wonder if using some WeldWood contact adhesive would be a good solution? This stuff has great holding power and would allow quick bonding, assuming you accurately place the gasket before the stuff takes hold! Would it impact the sealing ability of the gasket? I'm assuming the HiTack is a type of spray on contact adhesive, but I've never used this product. HiTack appears to be a Loctite product to seal and to keep gaskets in place during installation. The other strategy to avoid gasket creep is to use a steel reinforced gasket. The strategy here is to make the gasket rigid across the plane of the gasket to resist the squeezing force of the two metal surfaces. The down-side to the steel reinforced gasket is you cannot easily trim to match the custom porting of the KC heads. I’m thinking the composite gaskets mentioned by Undy that KC is using fall under this category.

Today I will carefully clean the gasket off the manifold and head surfaces and perform the measuring process which seems to be good advice from most of the respondents above. I don’t think I have interface issues since the mating surfaces are good enough to squeeze the gasket out, but I will check anyway. I assume that KC verifies and machines the manifold, but cannot confirm. I also plan to call KC Monday to inquire about their new composite gaskets and discuss in general. There customer service is awesome for help on problems like this!

I’m surprised on the difference of opinion on “The Right Stuff? The issue appears to be its ability to resist thermal cycling associated with the high thermal coefficient of expansion of Aluminum. I’ve heard this product is great, but I don’t have any personal experience. The main purpose of this stuff for an FE appears to be to provide additional sealing around the four cooling ports and the front and rear rails of the valley. Anyone have any additional thoughts on this product. Stuff is bloody expensive!