I finally got my Crx running. No CELS.
But i decided to swap the ZC manifold to the stock A6.
But like with all things in this swap, its being a pain in the ***.

The old manifold gasket seems to have been made out of a cardboard/cork/adamantite substance forged by the hands of Lucifer himself, that is hard as hell to remove. Its falling off in small chunks. Mostly not at all.

I wanted to scrape or sand it off but i dont want to damage the head.
Do you guys know of any ways to remove this thing?
Maybe something that will soften it so i can take a razor blade to it?

 

Gasket remover!

 

Thank you sir!
And like a razorblade or what?

 

well i used a spackle because its not as sharp and wont sratch the head(as Much) just take you time because the new gasket you do not want to leak cause of a small mistake.

 

yea you pretty much are just gonna have to chisel away at it piece by piece. aside from pulling the studs out of the head and taking an angle air grinder to it. which does work quite well mind you. of course i dunno how fun this would be with the engine still in the car lol. as far as using gasket remover, it is completely useless for this type of gasket. i've tried it and it does virtually nothing to aid in the removal.

 

bringing this thread back

would it be ok to sand the intake/exhaust ports on the head? if so, what grit?

 

I would highly recommend against it. If anything, I would use a scotchbrite very conservatively.

 

I agree with^^^ if you decide to sand it use a high grit sandpaper. I have used 400 or 800(whenever i have it). It worked out good, but i used it on the IM itself and had no problems.

 

sanding on the intake ports on the head wont harm a thing. of course trying it by hand isn't going to do squat. you'll need to chisel away a chunk at a time with a screwdriver (definately more dangerous than sanding), or use an angle air grinder with a small disc to get in between the studs. or remove the studs and do it, whatever floats your boat.

 

I was able to remove the thick chunks with razor blade but its the little paper thin PITA pieces which are stuck on there. i couldn't remove them using a razor otherwise it would gouge the surface. instead, i used a scotchbrite pad with some goofoff, and that didn't work. i went ahead and decided to wetsand using 1000 grit with a block. I'm sure it'll be fine