ACDelco or Fel-Pro ?

[clinebarger]

Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
Originally Posted By: clinebarger
Did you price GM elbows? You can take the O-ring off & install them on the Dorman elbows, You have to watch buying small parts as the assemblies may be cheaper.

New GM elbows would have lasted a long time.


I've got new GM elbows on order just in case something goes wrong with the Dorman elbows. I thought about taking the O-rings off the GM elbows, but I'm afraid of stretching the O-rings out. So I've got GM elbows, GM elbow O-rings, and Dorman elbows on order. I thought about having the ACDelco gaskets on order to back up the Fel-Pro gaskets, but that would be too expensive. Right now I'm giving some serious thought into going to the salvage yard to pull off a lower intake manifold. I watched some guy on YouTube pull the lower intake manifold on his car and it was completely unusable because of massive amounts of corrosion.


Just use the GM elbows!

People blow everything out of proportion, The 3.8L had the LEAST amount of issues compared to the 3.1L/3.4L 60 degree V6 & 4.3L/5.0L/5.7L Vortecs far as lower manifold gasket problems & corrosion around the water ports.
If your car has been maintained......Your lower intake will be fine.

 

[The_Eric]

Originally Posted By: clinebarger
Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
Originally Posted By: clinebarger
Did you price GM elbows? You can take the O-ring off & install them on the Dorman elbows, You have to watch buying small parts as the assemblies may be cheaper.

New GM elbows would have lasted a long time.


I've got new GM elbows on order just in case something goes wrong with the Dorman elbows. I thought about taking the O-rings off the GM elbows, but I'm afraid of stretching the O-rings out. So I've got GM elbows, GM elbow O-rings, and Dorman elbows on order. I thought about having the ACDelco gaskets on order to back up the Fel-Pro gaskets, but that would be too expensive. Right now I'm giving some serious thought into going to the salvage yard to pull off a lower intake manifold. I watched some guy on YouTube pull the lower intake manifold on his car and it was completely unusable because of massive amounts of corrosion.


Just use the GM elbows!

People blow everything out of proportion, The 3.8L had the LEAST amount of issues compared to the 3.1L/3.4L 60 degree V6 & 4.3L/5.0L/5.7L Vortecs far as lower manifold gasket problems & corrosion around the water ports.
If your car has been maintained......Your lower intake will be fine.


I tend to agree. They generally will go 10 years and/or 100k miles before they're an issue to someone.

 

[Lubener]

Originally Posted By: clinebarger
Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
Originally Posted By: clinebarger
Did you price GM elbows? You can take the O-ring off & install them on the Dorman elbows, You have to watch buying small parts as the assemblies may be cheaper.

New GM elbows would have lasted a long time.


I've got new GM elbows on order just in case something goes wrong with the Dorman elbows. I thought about taking the O-rings off the GM elbows, but I'm afraid of stretching the O-rings out. So I've got GM elbows, GM elbow O-rings, and Dorman elbows on order. I thought about having the ACDelco gaskets on order to back up the Fel-Pro gaskets, but that would be too expensive. Right now I'm giving some serious thought into going to the salvage yard to pull off a lower intake manifold. I watched some guy on YouTube pull the lower intake manifold on his car and it was completely unusable because of massive amounts of corrosion.


Just use the GM elbows!

People blow everything out of proportion, The 3.8L had the LEAST amount of issues compared to the 3.1L/3.4L 60 degree V6 & 4.3L/5.0L/5.7L Vortecs far as lower manifold gasket problems & corrosion around the water ports.
If your car has been maintained......Your lower intake will be fine.


The 3.8 has been history for a long time now so any remaining original gaskets are approx. 10++ years old.My lower gasket was shot at 45k miles and I changed it this past summer.. If you are doing the upper plenum, you are mostly there already as far as disassembly goes. Why not change out what has been a defective part from day 1. I believe the replacement GM elbows are plastic, why put plastic ones back on that are doomed to fail again. You are right, it has been blown out of proportion. As my teacher once said,"just do it".

 

[wtd]

Originally Posted By: Trav
Fel-Pro couldn't get it right either, they had as many revisions and failures as GM. It took over 10 years and a few revisions to get it right then they discontinued the engine.
The aluminum frame GM gaskets have been great and not updated since their introduction. I had the top off an engine for a cam swap that had them installed the month they became available and they were still perfect almost 10 years later, no corrosion of the aluminum, seal softening or shifting.

Edit: The Fel-Pro are fine, it took them a while to copy GM's aluminum gasket design but they did it.


If I remember correctly, the version mine currently has on it has the metal inserts around the bolt holes but the remainder of the gasket is still plastic and rubber. The aluminum frame version had not yet been developed when mine was last replaced.

Wayne