Victor Reinz mls exhaust manifold gasket OR cheap manifold LEAKING?

[Geeb]

I never started the car but I bought a vr mls manifold gasket and during a boost leak test it leaked like crazy... I've since torn the engine down to rebuild for 600ish hp before I ever ran it. Got a pte 6165 turbo, manley internals, built head, hks 272s, 3in v band tbe, bunch of other stuff you get the idea.... But I am running this ebay cast manifold (looks like an fp manifold only it's for t3) the surface (to the head) looks well machined flat so I guess my question is, is it a problem with the gasket or a problem with the manifold? Because on this build i have mostly all the parts to finish the engine part of the build but Im probably going to run SD so boost leaks won't really come into play except its gonna hurt performance some..

Even though this manifold is cheap, the turbo literally fits perfect in there when I tested the size of everything.. So that's a little bit of a plus. Altho id love to have a top mount.

Pics are of my old 60 trim/stock motor setup. Same t3 manifold though

 

[Mauispyder]

Could be either honestly. I find low budget gaskets to be 50/50 at best. No experience with eBay manifolds.

 

[Geeb]

I ended up using a regular fel pro After that one and sealed it with copper gasket maker and it sealed via boost leak test, but I never ran it before I decided I wanted to build it up and now I still had the v.r in the package so I was thinking about using that for this build but what's a good one to use if that's not

 

[Mello]

Manifold is a Turbonetics copy.

 

[gsxeclipse102]

Its early here but im 99% sure boost leak test doesnt check exhaust. Unless you plugged up your exhaust. Either way i would say your manifold prob has a low spot. You can check it with a machinist straight edge. Ive always run mls exhaust gaskets.

 

[Geeb]

I did plug it... I unbolted the o2 housing and plugged it there