Exhaust Sealer

George Jounakos · Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2002 5:53 am Post subject: Exhaust Sealer

What is the best sealer to use on the ball joint between the engine and exhaust pipe?

Stephen Buckley · Joined: 18 Jul 2001 Posts: 861

I use a high temp permatex. It's in an orange tube.

Charles Pou · Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2002 6:15 am Post subject: Exhaust Sealer

George, I know you are supposed to use something. But, I don't see anyone using sealer around the exhaust.

The consensus seems to be it doesn't stay in place anyway. And, going without doesn't seem to have any negative effects, so why bother. :-)

Nick Weil · Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2002 7:22 am Post subject: Exhaust Sealer

If it doesn't leak currently, I would not worry about it. But I have seen some chassis' that inherently require an odd angle for the pipe to mate with the ball joint. In those cases we use the High Temp RTV in the orange tube.

Nick

SteveFong · Joined: 09 Jan 2002 Posts: 55 Location: San Mateo, CA

If you don't have a sealed ball joint, you may be losing some power. Mine pulls much stronger when the pipe is properly sealed. The power valve requires a good seal to work properly (sufficient back pressure).

Check your manual, it is discussed there in detail.

Steve

Jay Sharpe · Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2002 6:23 am Post subject: Exhaust Sealer

I've been using Ultra Black Hi-Temp sealer with good results.

Jeff Fontenot · Joined: 02 Mar 2002 Posts: 110

I use RTV around the joint.
The only thing I notice is that it is clean in the back of the motor now.
The joint does re adjust itself when you are adjusting the chain, but it still seems to maintain the seal.

Chris Cumming · Posted: Fri Aug 23, 2002 9:45 am Post subject: Exhaust Sealer

What's the best way to apply the sealant? Which techniques have you found to be most effective?

Marshall Mauney · Posted: Fri Aug 23, 2002 12:59 pm Post subject: Exhaust Sealer

quote:
Originally posted by Chris Cumming:
What's the best way to apply the sealant? Which techniques have you found to be most effective?

Remove the pipe AND the outlet. Clean them both thoroughly at the sealing point, keeping in mind that the contact area will vary, depending upon the mounting angle of the pipe. I use a wire brush for both, followed by some brake cleaner and a shop rag for the pipe. For the outlet, I just drop it into solvent for a while (I generally cleaning out the powervalve while this is soaking). I generally also use this as an opportunity to throughly clean the back side of the engine, which will help you find leaks later, as well as looking good.

Once everything is clean and dry, apply a thin coat of sealant about 1/4" wide over the contact areas. You can go wider, if you're not sure where the contact area is, but the more goop you use, the messier it will get. I find that this is easier with the outlet off of the engine. Getting the whole thing put back together without getting the sealant all over everything can be a bit tricky; you have to use some care re-attaching the outlet to keep from scraping the sealant off of the bottom of the 'ball'.

As for the pipe, I like to keep the pipe attached to the rear bumper, with the pipe mounts slightly loosened. I then slide the bumper on loosely, and use the pipe springs to pull the whole assembly into alignment. Then adjust and tighten the mounts and the bumber bolts, and you're done. The sealer says that you should wait 24-48 hours before using it, but I've done it on Saturday night for a Sunday race with no problem; YMMV.

Once you've assembled everything and the sealer is dry, go run some laps. If you see any 'spattered' oil on the back of the engine, that means that you don't have everything sealed; the location of the spatter tells you where the leak is.

HTH,

MM