injector hat

what's everyones pros/cons on using silicone instead of gaskets between blower and blower restraints and between them and hat?

 

Most are done this way. Taking it apart sucks. Make sure all your surfaces are nice and flat. It's of that big of a deal to use silcone

 

I used to always use silicone, it seals well and is reliable, it just stinks assembling/dissembling because its slow.

I did an engine for a friend and he redid my silicone and used a gasket (I'm not sure why) and it sucked the gasket in creating a vacuum leak. We redid it with silicone and that has lasted for a while.

I redid all of our stuff and made them o-rings.

 

I O-ring eveything

 

I O-Ring everything except the blower to the set back plate....silicone is your best bet there. Just my 2 cents
Darren

 

To bead or not to bead ????

Hmmmm. I was told never to silicone the base of the blower. If the thickness of the bead isn't within a few thousandths you can distort the case. This info was given to me by one of the supermen of the blower business.

 

Well, for me this has worked great for about 20 years. I do not run a "bead" .....I just smear a very thin coat with my finger about 1/2" wide around the opening in my plate. But I don't claim to be one of those "superman" blower guru's. If your plate and blower is flat, it doesn't take much at all to seal it up.
Darren

 

high pressure grease..Dave

 

Many things are possible, I know of competitors that have abandon their o-rings (went back to gaskets) because they proved to themselves it was distorting the case. I think either the o-ring groove was not deep enough or not wide enough.

When installing bulk o-ring, you can vary the height sticking up by how you install it, stretching it as you install is easy to do and it shrinks the cross section.

Because of all the above I always spin the blower after its tightened to make sure it spins smooth, indicating the case isn't twisted.

 

We use the O-ring on blower top between the blower and restraint plate....then a screen style gasket glued with silicone to the top of the restraint plate with lithium grease between the gasket and hat....easy to take apart in a hurry if ya need to at the track....gasket stays on the blower restraint plate for the season...we replace the gasket if it has a tear or goes in for re-cert....

I would worry about sucking a gasket above the blower if it was not glued with silicone on one side....