Hello Fiero Owners from The UK. I have an '86 stock 2.8 SE which is one of very few over here. It was shipped here from Texas in 1990 and has been here ever since. I bought it 6 years ago and it has been great except for one problem. The front exhaust manifold started leaking from the gasket on the back & front exhaust ports a couple of years ago. I admit I've been pushing exhaust paste ito it since! I had a look at it when it started and saw that the studs were loose at both ends of the front cylinder head, but I couldn't get those nasty little pressed steel nuts off the heat shield. I took a pessimistic view and decided that they were probably broken off so I ordered a gasket set from Fierostore. I was sure that the head would have to be taken off to drill out the studs........so I left it as long as possible. I took the car off the road for paintwork a few weeks ago and stripped the front head off as well. The studs were drilled out and exhaust manifold gasket replaced. I put the head back on and when I came to replace the lower inlet manifold the new gaskets were different to the old ones.

The set is a Felpro which says it fits Fiero's, but there are no little metal blanking plates to cover the openings into the 2nd exhaust port on each cylinder head. These were seemingly bonded into the old gaskets but there was just a hole in the new ones. I had already thrown away one old gasket but the other one had to be levered off the old gasket. There was no obvious way to have stuck the old plate onto the new gasket without it falling off anyway.

The plates seem to blank off two empty 'dead end' galleries in the lower inlet manifold they don't seem to do anything!!

I contacted Fierostore who said the metal plates blanked off EGR ports and must be European Spec, then said to leave them out as they may compromise the gasket seal. I was happy about this expalnation until a UK Fiero specialist rang back from a voicemail I'd left. He said the new gaskets he used had the metal plates bonded in and not to leave them out as they protected the manifold itself form the hot exhaust gases.

Now I don't know what to do, I obviously don't want to risk damaging the inlet manifold but Fierostore say none of their gaskets have these metal plates in them??

Any advice Fiero Wizards? Sorry it's such a long post but I can't get the digital photos I took to load onto the forum.

When I replaced the lower intake manifold gaskets on an '85 S-10 Blazer with a 2.8L engine, the block off plates were there (had a small hole in the plate you either plugged or left open) as the heads had open ports to feed EGR gases to that model 2.8L engine's intake. The EGR valve was located on the intake manifold by the carburetor. The Fiero does not use this provision though. Look at the lower intake manifold. The spot that mates up to the head is a little indentation that goes nowhere. The bottom line is that block off plate is not needed on the Fiero.

Here is a close up pic of the lower intake. You can see it is a dead end just to the side of the port.

[This message has been edited by Hudini (edited 09-17-2007).]

The extra exhaust port is for engine variants that take the egr exhaust from the intake manifold. The Fieros get it from the exhaust cross over pipe. The manifold doesn't have a passage for the gases to go into so you don't need the blanking plate. For sealing effectiveness what matters is that the head and manifold surfaces are clean and flat, and that you use a good sealer, and that you don't cut the gasket to fit around the pushrods.

JazzMan

Thanx Hudini & Jazzman, I just didn't want to burn through the inlet manifold and trash it!! You agree with the Tech guy at Fierostore, it was just the guy in The UK that worried me.

PS How do you get that image onto the forum. I tried to use PIP but it kept saying the image files were too big, is ther another way??

quote Originally posted by bushnell1954: Thanx Hudini & Jazzman, I just didn't want to burn through the inlet manifold and trash it!! You agree with the Tech guy at Fierostore, it was just the guy in The UK that worried me. PS How do you get that image onto the forum. I tried to use PIP but it kept saying the image files were too big, is ther another way??

I always upload the pic to tinypic.com and post it with [img] tags.

Thanx for the help everyone. Fiero sorted and pix sorted.