Cork Gaskets Use Or Not To Use?

[ponyboy302]

Hey all, I'm redoing my lower on my 5.0. I noticed that the gasket kit comes with these cork gaskets for the front and back. My friend does'nt use it on his setup and uses silicon.

I was wondering which path to go, comments are aprreciated, and pros and cons of the two?

Thanks for looking -Dave

 

[jrichker]

Use them...
My favorite trick that saves time and effort is the stay in place gasket. Be sure that you scrape (don't use a wire brush) all the old gasket material off, then clean all the surfaces with acetone or MEK.

When the surfaces are clean, use weather strip adhesive on the head to manifold surface, and on the side of the gasket that mates to the head. Follow the instructions on the tube or can and when it gets tacky, press the gasket down on the head.

Clean the area where the rubber rails mount to the block in front and in the rear with more acetone or MEK and do the same trick with the weather strip adhesive that you did to the heads.

Coat the rubber seals and the gasket area around the water passages with lots of Blue Silicone gasket sealer and put it together. Wala! no leaks, and no gaskets that shifted out of place.

If you reuse the injectors from your old setup, a repair kit is available from most auto parts stores if needed. Coat the injector body "O" rings with oil before you use them and everything will slide back together. Take the other advice you got here and run with it.

Fuel injector seal kits with 2 O rings and a pintle cap (Borg-Warner P/N 274081) are available at Pep Boys auto parts. Cost is about $2.74 per kit. The following are listed at the Borg-Warner site ( http://www.borg-warner.com ) as being resellers of Borg-Warner parts:

http://www.partsplus.com/ or http://www.autovalue.com/ or http://www.pepboys.com/ or http://www.federatedautoparts.com/

Most of the links above have store locators for find a store in your area.

Use motor oil on the O rings when you re-assemble them & everything will slide into place. The gasoline will wash away any excess oil that gets in the wrong places and it will burn up in the combustion chamber.

 

[Dean85GT]

Yeah, I put them in when I did my intake manifold. I even laid a nice bead of black rtv overtop and over the seams... Be sure not to let the gasket slip.

 

[SamSnyder]

I say NO! I have not used them in years, and the manufacturers have pretty much given up on them as well. They can slip out of place when installing and you might not notice it. But more important, they're pretty fat and spongy, which can cause poor sealing problems with the head-to-manifold gaskets. This is even more so if you have milled the heads or block in a rebuild. Use black gasket maker silicon goo. I use Permatex Ultra Black Gasket Maker. After scraping, clean the surfaces with laquer thinner. Lay a nice thick bead of the goo down, and extra at the corners. Then go away and have a sandwich. Let the goo start to harden for about a half hour to an hour. Then install -- without any end gaskets, rubber or cork. I like to let it all set overnight before I fire it up. Works like a charm.

 

[Sicarius428]

Your edelbrock gaskets didn't come with the cork anyways. RTV sealer it is! Want to look around and look for some cork I might have laying around?
Kevin

 

[crazypete]

They are terrible. I spent 2 weeks posting here thinking my carb or ignition system were toast and it turns out the rear cork had popped out and given me a bad seal. I do this (opposite recommended procedure). Use intake gaskets and RTV together. Toss the cork and lay a THICK bead of RTV on both ends. Smear rtv THINLY over the head surface and both sides of the gaskets and on the intake to head surface. Then when you bolt it up, it all seals perfectly. Otherwise, I went through 3 sets of intake gaskets with leak after leak.

 

[5spd GT]

http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=535538&highlight=silicone

Here ya go I was asking the same question...this should help ya...

 

[ponyboy302]

Thanks everyone, for the responses. I probably wont use the cork gaskets. -Dave

 

[1994Vib.RedGT]

I used the cork gaskets the first time, oil was leaking like a siv out of rear seal, tore it back down, the weight of the manifold had flattened the cork to thewidth of notebook paper, I learned, dont use cork gaskets, use a THICK bead of RTV