Ditching Manifold to Turbo Gasket after ~3 Months of Use?
 

My Kraken/2560R kit came with the manifold, turbo and elbow already assembled with gaskets. I figured I'd run it since it was already together. Today, I noticed I have a minute exhaust leak from the top of the manifold to turbo gasket even with all the nuts tightened down.

I know most on here aren't running manifold to turbo gaskets at all. Any reason I can't ditch the gasket after 3 months of hard driving and just run the setup gasket-less? Before I disassemble anything, I just figured I'd check with the more knowledgeable if it's likely I warped the mating surfaces at all while the gasket was installed.

I purchased a used manifold where the previous owner had used a gasket. The gasket had etched a mark into the manifold where the
gasket mated. So I used flat surface and sand paper to make the flange true. With only 3 months usage, perhaps you may not see this
type of wear.

I forgot where I read this, but I believe it was on this forum. I’ve always used copper RTV which is good for up to like 500°F between the two flanges. The hypothesis being that it’s will burn up but still act as a buffer between the two imperfect surfaces. I do this on the turbo/downpipe too. So far I’ve never had an audible exhaust leak.

Gracias , guys. I'll do some research on the copper RTV. That's an interesting theory but makes sense.

Guess either way, I gotta pull the turbo off at some point and see. Maybe I'll wait until I have a free afternoon to check it out. Good news is that the leak is really only present when cold and seems to seal completely as soon as the manifold gets a little bit of heat through it.

I build a lot of high HP non-miatas in my shop. I always use gaskets on both the manifold to the head and manifold to turbo - and that's what I run on my miata. The composite gaskets are absolute trash and using no gasket is better than those. I always use the single layer stainless steel gaskets and have never personally seen any ever fail. If there is a problem with the steel gaskets, what usually actually happens is the manifold flange warps, not the gasket blowing out. Or the flanges were previously warped and not corrected before the package was assembled.

I know a few drag racers that use RTV on the turbo to manifold flange. They do it so they don't have to keep replacing gaskets when they disassemble their packages for inspection. I have used RTV on a manifold-to-head flange but that was a case were the manifold that was brought to me was so messed up by the prior fabricator that the gasket wouldn't cover the ports on the flange anymore. That has worked so far but that connection point is also a lot lower heat than the turbo/manifold flange.

The single peace stainless gaskets on the kraken kits always go out at one point. When I got my kit new I ditched the manifold to turbo and it sealed no problem. Id slap them together w/wheel bearing grease and see how they do. It should seal.

Bearing grease smeared on the flange, no gasket, no leaks. Make sure surfaces are flat. I use a thin coat of high temp orange stuff to seal the wastegate flapper assembly on the discharge side, again make sure surfaces are flat.

+1 to copper gasket stuff.
Apart from head gasket. No flanges in my whole car i don't think. No leaks.