I have hooker long tube headers on my 02 SS and I cant stop blowing out the gaskets ha. I don't drive the car very much but when I do I am always sure to let it warm up all the way before hammering on it. I have replaced both sides in the last two year (approx. 8,000kilometers) and this year I have developed a tick again. Its going up on the lift tomorrow to see if tightening the bolts will stop it, of course it is on the passenger side so I cant get a wrench on it from the top. I have been purchasing my gaskets right from Hooker but is there a better alternative that will last longer? Or is this just the pain of having headers on your car. (my buddies LT1 had similar issues as well but not sure what brand he was using).

 

A tick? Hmm
Are you using stage 8 locking header bolts?

 

Might retighten periodically.

 

What brand of gaskets? The cheap paper type?

 

Well tightening did the trick this time. But they still shouldn't be coming loose so often. I have been using the paper gaskets and bolts that Hooker sends out. I figured that they would know what would be best. But there has to be some kind of locking bolts that I can get. My girlfriends dad is a big mopar guy and he said that mopar makes locking bolts for there headers so GM might have something similar (maybe that is the stage 8 locking bolts that you mentioned). I sure hope so because this is getting annoying.

 

Look into Felpro header gaskets perhaps. The cheap paper board stuff..ick..

Yes, the stage8 header bolts have a clip that you put in to keep the bolt from backing out.

I didn't get them all in, but enough of them.

 

The heating and cooling tends to compress the gaskets. My headers were machined well enuf that I didn't use gaskets and had no leaks.