Okay okay, I'll just ask. But I know a few of you have wondered the same thing when playing around with exhaust

As some of you know, I've been experimenting with my exhaust as of late. In doing so, I've had the privilege of replacing the gaskets between the cat pipes and headers a few times - they're quite cheap and the same as used on my other Porsche, so I always have a dozen or so on hand. If I ever break a connection there, I just toss on a new set of gaskets instead of reusing.

Anyhow, I've always noticed that they have what appears to be an orientation - that is, two square shoulders and one, thinner smooth corner. Also, there are two thin sides and one thick side around the center.

In playing with the placement of the gasket on the stock cat pipes off the car, the smooth corner facing down / squared shoulders at the top corners when installed appears to be correct, as there is little extra jutting out around the edge and it all seems to line up cleanly on those stock cat pipes. However, on other exhaust bits, that thicker side will protrude a bit when following this orientation.

Now, I realize this probably nothing major and just having the gasket on there is likely good enough, but I was curious to see if anyone knew for certain which way those OEM gaskets were supposed to be oriented. I don't see it anywhere in the service DVD I have (other than to just in fact use a gasket).

I see zero blowby when examining gaskets I've removed, so it's possibly just a byproduct of manufacturing those gaskets and nothing more - on there and torqued properly is probably good 'nuff