I payed Dale Starcher like 7xx dollars to do some work on my car, and he's an excellent guy. I wish I was related to him so I could get work done for cheap and parts for free. Wonderful man, that one. If not a bit pricey.

Anyways, one of the problems with it was the exhaust manfiold was like, not level, it was bent, you know, not sitting on the block properly. Well, he replaced it with a different one, but after oh, 4-5 months, I've got a massive exhaust leak, all coming from the exhaust manifolds. Its huge too, you can feel the **** on your hands pretty bad. What need I do to fix this problem permenantly, and fix the exhaust leak, and make my car sound nice and quiet again? I'm not rich, but when winter comes, I'll be storing this puppy so I'll be working on it all through winter, probably getting the whole thing revamped, fixing the exhaust, switching the AC, redoing the interior, lots of stuff, but this exhaust is annoying the piss out of me. Maybe I'll fix it early.

To figure out how to fix it... You have to figure out exactly what is leaking...

If it leaking at the flanges... It could be a simple issue that the bolts backed out. Annoying but happens. Even when they are torqued right.

Many people have installed studs so they can use nuts. Beside holding better at intitial install, if they rust you can crack the nuts off and then replace the stud, usually alot easier than a broken bolt.

It's also possible that the manifold cracked. This is really common and can be hard to see depending where the crack is.

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Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
(Jurasic Park)

The Ogre's Fiero Cave (It's also at the top of every forum page...)

If you find that the manifolds are the problem, I have some welded, ported, replacements, that have been milled flat. They should be a good fix.

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at what cost?

This is partly speculation on my part, but I think many of our problems with cracked manifolds are due to worn motor mounts allowing the motor to move too far and putting excessive stress on the manifolds. My manifolds are currently leaking, and I have a replacement set that are ported and milled flat, but I'm not going to replace them until I can replace the motor mounts too.

The stress issue would be very relevant if the leak/cracks were located at the outlet end of the manifold where the stress is primarily applied, in my experience the problem causing the leaks and cracks is excessive heat. The tubular manifolds can get very hot particularly on an engine that is experiencing tuning issues that are causing a lean fuel mixture. I did two things to fix my exhaust manifold leaks:

1. I cut them between each port with a reciprocating saw after mounting them on a loose cylinder head. I made sure the bolts were tight afterwards then I used my
MIG welder and welded the seems back together. No question they were straight afterwards.

2. Then I purchased a set of OE exhaust manifold gaskets and installed them with the manifolds. It is also a good idea to thread chase the bolt holes holes and
flush them with WD 40 or carbuerator cleaner to reduce the chance of complications in the future should you have a bolt sheared off by a flange from the expansion stresses caused by the heat.

It may sound like a lot of trouble but I had the MIG welder so it only cost me time time and had been ambitious enough back when it happened I would have made a replacement system altogether since mandrel bent pipe is available. I would only use stainless for that part of it.