Wastegate Gasket Issue

[Risking]

Having an issue with wastegate gaskets.

Basicly RB26 with twin tial gates. Had it out on oran park over the weekend and was performing brilliantly. Spooling early plenty of usuable tourque

Now its running a lot of boost and making some serious grunt hence the heat is killing the gaskets between the gates and the manifolds after a few sessions at full noise.

Now the surfaces have been ground flat and ive tried all the conventional gasket material types.

My next though is to make copper gaskets. Has anyone had any experiance in using copper as wastegate gaskets or can anyone suggest a better material than copper?

Im getting tired of pulling the gates off to replace gaskets and sick of driving a laggy car after 3 sessions.

[tridentt150v]

does the gasket blow out [a bit goes missing] or just stop sealing?

And do yu use a sealant or install dry?

[Adriano]

Is there a chance you can run them without gaskets?

[Risking]

Gaskets pysically blow out and are gone.

I could run it metal to metal but Id rather try and keep something between them if possible.

Reason being is the stainless steel valve seat sits on the manifold flange and I cant really be sure its flat once bolted down as it puts preload onto the spring.

Edited February 4, 2008 by Risking

[STATUS]

or even shim material would work with a good spraying of HYLOMAR, getting it laser cut would be the only drama. SCE makes a large range of copper exhaust (we used the V8 collector ones and they lasted fine even when the headers were exposed to extreme heat for extended periods (glowing red )) gaskets they dont make anything for your TIAL application, again just find a laser cutter... im sure you could get a few done and sell them off.

[Risking]

cutting them is not a problem.

I have anything and everything related to cutting/shaping

I was basicly thinking 1mm copper, cut it to shape. fit them up and get the manifolds hot on the dyno before retightening the gates back down with the copper hot.

Trent how thick typicaly are the copper gaskets you have used?

[STATUS]

Well they were all around 7/64" so around 2.5-3mm on the collector gaskets, some were under this but had pressed in sealing bead. i would probaly go for 2.5mm (as you wont have the sealing bead pressed in) and remmeber use HYLOMAR spray... (i think ive written HYLOMAR 10 times today )

[tridentt150v]

I prefer coppercote, but whatever works.

I'd anneal the copper gasket before installing it as well, if you do that it will form to the top and base surfaces much better.