I just mailed out my new manifolds for jet-hot ceramic coating after I had to have the flanges machined/decked due to warping fresh out of the box.
After doing more research, we are in good company struggling with warped/broken exhaust manifolds. It happens on GM trucks at my office, and it happens with fords.
It used to be on the 4th gen rams, that the manifold bolts wood break before the manifold, now it seems that that is reversed. I believe that if you are handy with a wrench and don’t have cracked manifolds yet, it would be a good preventative maintenance item to remove your manifolds and check them for being warped. Odds are they have some twist in them and you could likely avoid failure by getting them machined.
Here are some picks of how warped my new header flanges were. I never checked my first set of headers thinking that they were new and fine. Not so. I was always fighting leaks at the front and back and this is where the cracking happened too.
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