upon trying so get my engine to fire up sunday night i noticed two coolant leaks comming form the intake manifold its either the wrong gasket or its the RTV i put on, my dad seems to think i did the wrong thing by putting RTV gasket sealant(red) around the water ports, he said i should have used copper coat on the gaskets and intstead of putting that red rtv stuff around the water ports, is there anything better to use?
while RTV shouldn't really be necessary on a good gasket with o-ring style seals running around the ports.. it's doubtful that it would be the major cause there. Without knowing exactly what parts you have there.. I would guess it's a mismatched/incorrectly installed gasket.. or the wrong part for the job. Either way.. you'll need to pull it off to see what's up. With the small amount of work required to work out the issue.. it's not something you want to really try and band-aid with liquid sealants. As for parts to use.. get better quality versions from any of the top mfgrs. Fel-pro..victor reinz.. etc.. all have various levels of quality and the extra 15 bucks for premium gaskets is well worth it down the road too. Then for sealants on intake gaskets that don't really require it.. I use VERY small amounts of Hylomar gasket dressing around all ports. Trick is not to make a mess since it's non-drying.. and mistakenly use so much that it affects torque squash in critical load area's(slicone is even worse in that regard). Plus.. Hylomar keeps moving out of the gaskets into ports and outer edges of the gasket over time to make a fly-paper type mess. A super thin transparent layer is all that's required to aid in long term sealing.
have you retorqued your intake bolts? it usually takes at least 5 times of going around the torque sequence on the intake bolts to get it properly seated. im not a big fan of red rtv. its usually for high temp stuff like exhaust. i usually use black or gray rtv for the intake.
its a felpro gasket that i bought when i had an 84'stang efi manifold installed at one point but i still have the one i took off that the enginne builder put on, when i tourque it down i when in order and stopped when i herd the tourque wrench click think i went around twice second time was a double check. can the gaskest be put on without any sealant?
On the water ports I use Permatex #2. I'm not a big fan on any type/color RTV. I seen it get into places it don't belong...like inside the oil pump.
X2! RTV is actually not a gasket sealer. It is meant to be used in place of a gasket! It can actually cause a gasket to slip out of place! I would get new Fel-Pro or equivalent intake gaskets for a carburated 302. I believe the injected ones are different!
If the gaskets have been torqued and the engine run to temp...The gaskets have been heat cycled, dont re-use em. In fact dont re-use used paper gaskets...Ever...
I use RTV on mine. My first set of intake gaskets were wrong. There was no way they'd seal without the RTV. I also found the grey RTV to work better. Had a problem with my wife's Sentra and the timing cover gasket was a tube of grey RTV. Been using it ever since.
picked up the proper felpro gaskets today, it came with those cork front and rear pieces but i also have some rubber from the 84 gasket kit i purchased awhile back(i never used them) which should i use?
Last time I used the rubber seal I never got the rear to quick leaking. Before that I used blue RTV alone, let it nearly dry before I put the intake on.
