Or........is soaking them in water an old wives tale? I'll attempt any trick to make a better seal for the sbc in my Model A.
My old man years ago soaked all the old (cork) gaskets,oil pan,6 cylinder side cover gaskets in water overnight and it worked good for me too but if you got header gaskets that soak up water you got some cheap ass gaskets.The answer to your question is no.
Soaking gaskets in water is only done with cork oil pan,side cover or old cheapass valve cover cork gaskets,If you got heaher gaskets that will even absorb water they are some cheap junk,the answer is no.
Nah, complete b/s. Go with an aluminum or copper gasket if you can, if not, the usual will do. Just keep checking the header bolts to make sure they are tight to avoid a blow out. They do have the uncanny reputation of loosening on thier own.
I could never get the paper gaskets to last very long. I made some collector gaskets from copper on my model A that have been there 10 years or better. I have made head flandge gaskets from aluminum. It would be cheaper to buy a good metal gasket for the best service. Ak Miller told me that tighten header bolts should be tightened ,warmed up with engine, let cool, retighten and it would stay. Now I can't ask him how to get them off.RIP Ak Hooley
So.....................I guess I'd better pull them out of the kitchen sink to avoid the wrath of HAMB.
I never have done this... I did have header gasket issues though. The cure for me was to coat both sides of the gasket with anti seize. I initially did this to make removing the bad gaskets easier since I was replacing them so much. But to my surprise it stopped the problem.
The solid copper header gaskets seem to be the best. Stage 8 makes locking header bolts that will keep them from backing out. The better headers with 3/8" thick flanges are best and don't seem to have the sealing issues.
If your using the white Mr Gasket style, soak them. Or at least it worked for me all these years. The better ones don't need it, but those white asbestos like ones swell up and get soft so you can really squish the headers into them. Seemed to keep them from blowing out for me.
we have tried every kind of header gasket know to man, on our dyno. and we can't have any leaks, or it makes the oxygen sensors lie to ya.. the very best gasket we've found is> no gasket, just some permatex ultra black, or some good quality rtv sealer, let it set up over night if possible, works every time. doesn't burn out, the side benefit, is , the header bolts won't come loose,as the headers are tightened down,metal to metal, not some squishy gasket that gets thinner, and bolts come loose.. just try to flatten out your header flanges,where they meet the cylinder head.. makes it nicer, less sealer needed.. minimal success with the copper, they don't conform to the header flange that well, until they are heat cycled a few times,,
I gave up on the water soaking drill finally. I soaked them all night and plopped them on next morning. Still leaked! Tore it all apart and went out and bought some of the crush-able multi- layered one that have Percy's label on it. I cleaned the area around all the ports (yes, I did find some old junk still stuck to the heads) and then dropped the crush-able Percy's on it. I ran it thru 3 heat and cool down cycles and it sounds nice now after tightening it up for the last time (I hope). This engine has huge compression and too much cam so any leak it used to have was greatly magnified. Paper gaskets suck!
used anti seize on the stock cars, did not leak and seemed to be reusable real easy, i was too cheep to replace them
Good idea.....just make sure you're using sensor safe RTV if you have O2 sensors down stream. Anything that can releases silicone (like the red Hi-Temp stuff) will poison them.
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