Exhaust gasket help wanted.
 

Well, it looks like my 1992 y-pipe, precats and main cat have just about reached the end of their useful lives. Since the driver's side pre-cat makes contact with my WRX 5-speed tranny conversion (the tranny crossmember), I'm opting for a new replacement Walker 2" dual inlet, 2.5" single outlet main cat and a delete of both pre-cats.

My question to the SVX exhaust knowledgeable: do I need to order replacement gaskets for the three that are affected?
1. two o-rings between the cast exhaust manifolds and stock pre-cats
2. one larger o-ring between the output of the main cat and the catback

Subaruparts.com wants approx. $5.00 each for the small ones and $15.00 for the large one, but they aren't in stock and I won't have them until late next week.

My local Suby dealer wants $7.20 each for the small ones and $23.00 for the large one. He doesn't stock them either, but he insists that he has never seen these gaskets fail and that I can reuse them as long as I use plenty of high-temp Permatex. Is he right? (imagine that, a Subaru dealership parts room guy talking me OUT of buying new parts).

Your help and suggestions are appreciated as always.

I've had my two pre-cats cut out, and I actually just replaced the 3rd cat with a y-pipe, so I'm catless. But, that sounds like butt, so I'm putting the 3rd (2 into 1) cat back in. I'm going with a stock unit so that I can just unbolt, replace, and re-bolt. If you go with a non OEM cat, you probably won't have any sort of gaskets there. I would guess that you'll have welds all around, or welds and clamps. So, with that in mind, the gaskets would obviously not be necessary. I'm not at all fond of exhaust clamps, and that's part of the reason I'm opting to stay with the OEM unit.

As far as the comment that the cats can be re-used with just some high temp whatever, it may be true. That's what I did when I put the Y-pipe in, and it seemed to seal fine. I'm getting new gaskets and mounting hardware anyway. I just like having stuff that i know is in good shape rather than guessing at the condition of the current gaskets :)

The 2 front metal gaskets flatten out and will leak if reused. My dealership wants $24 EACH for them. I put the old gaskets over a pipe and lightly hammered them to get some of the original thickness back.

New gaskets
 

Thanks for the input, I'll probably order new gaskets just to be safe.