Its time for some repairs.

[Jonni Nitro]

Well, I have been noticing an exhaust leak lately. It became even more noticeable while towing my new 29ft camper trailer. I crawled under the truck and began my inspection. My first through was probably the up pipe donuts, but there was no soot at all. Finally I found that a head had broken off one of the manifold bolts on the driver's side. The good news is it should be easy to get at once I get the manifold off. The bad new is I still have to fix it. How much power am I losing by having this type of leak. I would imagine that the leak is pretty substantial, it is really loud under load and there is a lot of soot on my tranny and tunnel.

Being as the up pipes are in good shape and not leaking, but I will still have to remove them I was going to just replace the hardware and install the larger Chevy donuts. I really cant justify $800 for bellowed pipes unless they can be found way cheaper, these are still in good shape after 235K miles.

For the manifolds, I cant decide if I should buy new ones or have these surfaced. If there were some sort of performance increase to be had I would consider something different. I would love to get ceramic coated ones or send mine to Jet Hot to have everything coated. I was quoted $355 for manifolds, up pipes, and turbine housing in Extreme 2000.

Other things I plan to do while I have everything out is gut the EBPV, check turbo tolerances and rebuild if needed or purchase turbo, replace orings, CCV mod. Is there anything else you guys would suggest. Maybe a 1.00 turbine housing?

I found this turbo Click

I would like to get as much power/efficiency as possible using the stock injectors and stock/modified turbo. I found a guy that sells My truck is used for daily driving and towing a camper that is 6000 lbs loaded. Thanks for the input.

My sig isnt showing up. Vehicle info: 1997 CCLB 4wd 3in dp, 4in MBRP, DIY 6673, Edge Tuner ( I know I want a TW 6 pos), c00n valve body mod, 4R100 pan

[7.3L F-250]

that turbo looks like its just a factory turbo with a quick spool housing on it

[speeddemon31176]

You do not have to pull the up pipes to fix that leak. My suggestion would be to simply cut the manifold bolts in the space between the manifold and the head leaving enough stud to grab to remove them afterwards. The center bolt is for alignment and is a tight fit through the manifold and usually breaks if you look at it wrong. Unbolt the up pipe to manifold bolts, cut the manifold bolts and pull the manifold out, remove the rest of the bolts that are stuck in the head, either resurface your manifold or get a set of gaskets and new manifold bolts and reassemble. That turbo is nothing more than a factory turbo with the quick spool housing 1.00 vs 1.15.

[Jonni Nitro]

Thanks for the input guys. Yes, I realize that it is a rebuilt turbo with a quick spool housing, but for the price it doesnt seem to bad if can get the core money back. I could rebuild my own and get a housing to make things cheaper. I am not even sure if mine needs a rebuild yet.

[7.3L F-250]

if you do it your self i belive the housings $100 and the rebuilds $75 i thjnk thats alot cheeper then what they want for that turbo

[Jonni Nitro]

Update:

I started tearing into things today when I got home from work. I figured I would concentrate on the driver side as it has the leak and the broken manifold bolt. I removed the tire and inner fender which made it really easy to get around in there. Soaked all the bolts in PB Blaster and let them set for a few minutes. After reading all the horror stories I was afraid this was going to be a nightmare. I put a ratchet on the first bolt and it popped loose with a good bit of force. A few socket changes later I had the manifold in my hand. I am beginning to think that either this truck was completely babied or these parts have been replaced. I am almost certain that the up pipe are fairly new. That look brand new and have no leaks or corrosion on them.

Now on the the manifold. I am attaching some pics. This leak was big and I cant imagine how much boost I must have been loosing with this much of a leak. In the photo on the block it looks like it wasnt only one exhaust port leaking, more like 3 out of 4.

I still havent decided what to do with the manifold. Should I take it in and have it surfaced or buy new? How much can they take off to make it flat before if effects fitment.


All I see is lost HP and higher EGTs, hopefully there wasnt any permanent damage.


Looks like more leaks on the bottom of port 2 & 3.


Port #4 was completely leaking


This the port #1 it almost looks like somebody did a bad job at machining these once already.


The bolts have almost no corrosion on them.


When I built my turbo Cobra I used copper RTV to seal the headers. It was a tip from my friend you has a street driven 900whp Mustang. He swears by this stuff for exhaust and neither one of us have ever had a leak. Its good to 700F.

[speeddemon31176]

These engines well surpass 700*. It isn't uncommon to see 1200* easily. That has definitely been apart before. Those bolts came out too easily to have been original. I would surface the manifold and throw a set of exhaust gaskets on there and be done with it.

[Jonni Nitro]

Looking for the fepro gaskets, do you have a part number?

[speeddemon31176]

The part # is MS93489

[Jonni Nitro]

Manifolds are at the machinist and should get it back tomorrow. I also got the fel pro gaskets. Any good substitutions for the manifold bolts? I have some that fit but the head is a bit bigger. I supposed I could get them from Ford or go allen head. I am going to try and gut the EBPV while I am at it if I can get the tools to get at the bolts. Swivel head sockets are stupid expensive.