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Having battled various exhaust leaks for the better part of a year now I am happy to say that I finally found a winning combination of techniques for eliminating leaks.

If you have been following my exploits over the last year or so you know I bought a brand new exhaust system from Waldron Exhaust. It took a few back and forths to fix some issues with the bends in the pipes (Waldron's was absolutely fantastic to deal with and I highly recommend them!) yet even when I got it all sorted from a fit perspective I had a hell of a time getting all the joints sealed.

I ended up welding the pipes into the muffler which obviously took care of the leaks in those joints. Moving forward, I used liberal amounts of Walker Muffler Seal (black, remains flexible to some degree) on the joints under the floor at the front of the car and was left with a small yet annoying leak primarily on the passenger side where the manifold mates to the head as well as at the (horrible) donut gasket. I found a fantastic crushable graphite manifold gasket recommended by my local NAPA dealer which I installed along with a freshly milled manifold (torqued to the standard 25 lb-ft), and then I gooped the donut on both sides. First, I gooped the donut and manifold, assembled them and allowed it to sit overnight. I then installed the manifold, gooped up the flare in the pipe and the mating surface of the donut and assembled them.

After leaving them overnight I just took a ride and all I heard was the sweet sound of properly sealed exhaust! Woo Hoo!

Now I am ready to order the MSD Atomic EFI next week. It requires a completely sealed exhaust to prevent air from infiltrating the exhaust upstream from the O2 sensor, and now I have full confidence I can move forward. I will post my experience with the MSD Atomic EFI once I get it installed but I expect phenomonal throttle response and somewhat improved economy along with a boatload of newfound power (the secondaries on my carb are horribly tuned and I never bothered to deal with it as I have intended to install EFI).

Resources:

Manifold Gaskets:



http://catalog.remflex.com/OLDSMOBILE_Header_Exhaust_Manifold_Gasket_p/11-003.htm

Waldron's:

http://www.waldronexhaust.com/

Awesome!
Great Post!

I have NEVER seen a fuel-injection system that will out-do a properly tuned carburetor for throttle response. Fuel injection and drive-by-wire is typically so terrible at throttle response it's unbelievable.

Fuel economy--not so much. Most fuel injection systems struggle to achieve stoich--14.7-to-1 air/fuel ratio. Best economy is at 15 or 16 to one--at cruise, part-throttle.

Power--maybe. Depends on a person's ability to tune a carb.

Driveability--maybe. Depends on a person's ability to tune a carb.

Emissions--YES. Feedback fuel injection excels at reducing tailpipe emissions.

First Guess: The Atomic injection will give you similar power and driveability to a decently-tuned Quadrajet; but with potential emissions reductions.

Shurkey, What can I say? You may believe as you choose. I began to write a detailed technical rebuttal, but what is the point?

Carbs may be fine for you, but I prefer the simplicity, ease of tuning, fantastic throttle response, better fuel mileage and cleaner burn that virtually any EFI system can provide. Carbs are, at best, crude mechanical systems with so many compromises they have to be highly complex devices that are impossible to tune well for all conditions. To make matters worse, you have to go through a very messy, lengthy process to tune a carb - I know, I have done it. It takes a number of adjustments and testing (installation, running, removal, disassembly) to get it right unless you are a highly experienced wizard, and yet it will never come close to what an EFI system just does automatically. Add in the ability to tune the Fuel/Air mixture in concert with the timing, and no carb can touch what an EFI system does without any real effort. I can make adjustments to the EFI for fine-tuning while sitting in the passenger seat with my wife driving, if I choose.

My prediction is that I will enter the 8 parameters the Atomic EFI requires, it will start up and run far better than my crappily tuned Q-Jet (hey, I have a great deal of respect for Q-Jets. As carbs go, they are among the best when properly tuned). At first I will use the HEI as per their suggestion to keep things simple at first, but once it is running well I will swap out the HEI distributor for the MSD which will allow me to have the EFI control the timing. This will allow me to fine-tune the motor to a degree no carb can ever hope to acheive.

We no doubt must agree to disagree. I have great respect for your suspension products and I do not wish to get into an argument over something that is not really debatable in the first place.

I will, however, report back what my experience is once I get it up and running. So far I am having a hard time loosening the fuel tank bolts and finding a location for the fuel pump. I had a picture in my mind as to where it would go, but what is in my mind does not necessarily represent reality...