Best exhaust gasket.

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Freelander

Well-Known Member
Messages
85
Installed a pipe and used a copper gasket.

Looks like it leaks.

Yes, the bolts are plenty tight and plenty locked.

Run once and had exhaust crap on the throttle servo and engine. Tried to tighten it that last 1/8th past breaking and ran again: same thing.

It is not coming from the connection between header and pipe it is definitely coming from header to engine connection.


What do people do for this? Use one of those paper seeming gaskets? Use liquid gasket(doesn't seem heat resistant enough to me) is copper no good? Some kind of teflon? Just use the gasket the pipe manufacturer sent? Does anyone spam loctite on their gasket before installation or is my friend that recommended that insane like I suspect?
 
The copper needs to be annealed. Heated till red then used.
I’m not a fan of copper exhaust gaskets.
I should just run a more conventional gasket it seems. Something with a bit of give. Not some soft metal that can't adjust to vibrations.
We had a cheap gasket before on the muffler and coated it with blue loctite and it was stuck on there good.

We had to scrape it off in pieces and clean the crap off of the exhaust port before. It worked pretty darn good though but I don't want to do that again
 
I use the copper gasket without annealing with a light coat of high temp copper rtv and ive never had an issue. I can't stand leaking especially in my boats so since I've done this I've yet to have a leak and I have forever gaskets. Also your header bolts will move due to the fiber gaskets and you have to keep checking them, I check mine time to time and they are still just as tight as day 1.

Your success is measured in your willingness for success so It failed for lack of preparation of the material.
 
I use the copper gasket without annealing with a light coat of high temp copper rtv and ive never had an issue. I can't stand leaking especially in my boats so since I've done this I've yet to have a leak and I have forever gaskets. Also your header bolts will move due to the fiber gaskets and you have to keep checking them, I check mine time to time and they are still just as tight as day 1.

Your success is measured in your willingness for success so It failed for lack of preparation of the material.

Can you give me a link to the RTV you used please.
I don't know what it's called down here.
Thanks
 
I found an M5 stainless bolt in the bag of mystery for that hard to torque position because of the question mark shape of the header. Easy to get a wrench on and tighten.

Thanks, everyone for this input on gaskets.
I have another question which will probably require a lot of detail to explain and is clearly bad and probably there is a thread somewhere.

Black splooge from exhaust.

Too much oil? Running too rich? Partly because we are dumb and used 89 octane with 10% ethanol and mixed 4 litres 3 weeks ago? Of course we are learning such stuff after the fact because we're impatient, impulsive and uninformed. A trifecta of bad traits causing financial harm to us hobbyists.

We've yet to pull the spark plug but I can only imagine it is covered in the same black splooge.

Please help direct our new area of knowledge we must research and implement. Basic advice much appreciated. I am guessing ditch this old mix and get a fresh proper fuel going?
Ps: I am really sorry for asking stupid questions, they just aren't stupid to me. You guys can tell me off if you like. It might be frustrating leading me around by my nose and I apoligise for that.
 
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FIXED somewhat. The whole 'provided gasket' with loctite spam fixed the leak. Better octane and mix seems to have blasted some gunk out of the engine. Once it warmed up and ran for a bit it started sounding and performing much better. Carburetor on stock settings. 5°c
 
So to help eliminate your oil build up issue is simple, 2 strokes need to be run hard and wide open alot. Any putting around or slow throttle will cause it. Lean out the needles a hair and you should do just fine.
 
What's this caveat I keep getting 'it's too damp out you will damage your engine running in the cold' is this a thing? I don't believe it whatsoever. Sure blasting full throttle on a cold engine is probably bad but besides salt and slush or extremely cold weather affecting fuel air mixture there shouldn't really be a danger to running in cold ambient temperatures?
I mean though literally all my knowledge about 2 stroke motors is from abusing quick cuts at work. Motors I am not paying for but I hate those really abused saws that are a test to start. I just really want to avoid that condition.
 
Ideally let the engine warm up before you hammer on it. Summer time I give it about 3 minutes idling and if its cold enough for snow I'd let it idle for atleast 5 minutes before touching the throttle.
 
Ideally let the engine warm up before you hammer on it. Summer time I give it about 3 minutes idling and if its cold enough for snow I'd let it idle for atleast 5 minutes before touching the throttle.
personally i would say thats too long to just let it idle, imo you wanna blip the throttle a little every so often because i've always been told by my dad that atleast on dirtbikes it'll fowl the plug
 
The whole octane thing is about frivolous, untill your running high enough compression to need the anti knock features. In a stock ngune there's no real reason to run higher then mid grade, or highest pump gas at best. Ethonal gas in of its self is not any worse running then straight gas. Slightly less power, but we'll within the range if what the carbs can flow fuel wise. Poor storage and after run practices are more to blame then the ethonal its self.
The splooge is from high oil to fuel ratios and poor tuning ( air to fuel). To understand this you need to understand a few basic principals. Fuel doesn't burn in liquid state. It needs to be turned into a vapor. The carb atomizes the fuel into the air. In this phase its still a liquid, albeit very small droplets it is a liquid. It does not turn into a vapor until it enters the crankcase, this is where the oil suspended in the fuel drops out and the liquid fuel droplets vaporize. The oil now has to migrate from the crankcase out to the cylinder, and bearings. Modern oils are designed to be burned with the fuel. This does not add any appreciable gunk at normal ratio level with modern oil, actually it doesn't do much to affect the burn at all. Lower classes of oils can, will, and do effect the burn in the combustion chamber.

Now we need to speak about how much oil is really needed. At idle, virtually no oil is needed. There just isn't enough load or rpm to make oil migrate quickly through the engine. This rises with rpm and load. Our top end rpm dictates we need more oil since it is seeing less time in the engine, but our load rate says we don't really need as much oil. Oil ratio is a function of rpm and sustained load. I will guarantee 90% of us don't have much of a load, let alone a sustained load on any land based rc engine with the exception for racing. So really 25 to 1 isn't needed or warranted. 33 to 1 or 40 to1 would be more then adequate, and I have a g320 that ran gallons and gallons of fuel with no I'll effect at 50 to 1.

Tuning..... I'd wager a small bet between electrical and tuning questions the tuning would be close to the most asked on this or any forum. Fact is most people can't tune an engine to save their lives. It's ok, and most of us that do tell people to run a little on the rich side. Helps cool the engine and keeps you from running too lean and blowing up your engine. We're not there so we can't really tell you what state of tune your engine is in, videos help but are just a general yep sounds OK. Down side of running rich is carbon deposits from the fuel. Our fuel is actually a mix of garbage and really good stuff to make up a minimum spec that the garbage can't meet. Add in storage, and transportation and I'd wager most fuel when bought is at its limits for quality. (Mind you this has been proven many times, the studies are out there.) So we're left with a half decent fuel, thay is full of junk that will leave deposits. Happens in your 4 stroke why can't it happen in your 2 stroke? It does. We just pay more attention to these little engines vs our car engines. But we have specs for 2t oils! But nearly no one in large scale rc seems to run low ash, high detergent oils, because again old garbage that lost favor 20 years ago is promoted because of myths and old wives tails. Dino,vs semi, vs full synthetic is another topic.
personally i would say thats too long to just let it idle, imo you wanna blip the throttle a little every so often because i've always been told by my dad that atleast on dirtbikes it'll fowl the plug
No offense this is 10000000% an old wife's tail from the days of garbage 2t oil. I can let any of my 2 strokes sit and idle all day and non of them will foul a plug. Poor tuning and sub par oil cause this.
 
personally i would say thats too long to just let it idle, imo you wanna blip the throttle a little every so often because i've always been told by my dad that atleast on dirtbikes it'll fowl the plug

Mmm is that why your having issues with your engine now? I'd rather foul a 5 dollar plug then cold seize an engine.
 
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