I just did the intake fix on my car. My question is that I put a good amount of sealant on the front and back of the manifold, but when I went to drop the manifold on it didn't go directly on and I had to move it back some. My main concern is that some of the sealant was pushed back into the engine. Should I be worried? Should I take the manifold off and redo the seal?

Also my car only has 60k miles on it and when I pulled the manifold off there was caked on oil everywhere. I ended up pulling the part of engine out that holds down the rings around the lifters, not sure what it called, and cleanin it off. It probably had close to half an inch of sludge or something on it. I wouldn't think that is normal?

Anyways, hopefully it runs a little better now.

 

No way should you have a half inch of sludge in your lifter valley! Are you changing your oil regularly?

 

I'm not sure how it was taken care of before I had it. But now it gets changed every 3k or less with Valvoline fully synthetic. When I bought the car, last november, it had 49k miles on it. It had a really bad miss at about 45. As soon as I got it home I took off the throttle body and it was freakin black, so I cleaned it and seafoamed the car, which smoked out the entire neighborhood. I am thinking that whoever owned it before me just let it sit and babied it, never gave it any gas......

 

I'd pull the intake again and redo the RTV. You'll kick yourself if you went to all this trouble and still had the leak. I always allow the RTV to skin over before placing the intake in place...wait about 10 minutes after you apply the bead of RTV.

 

I redid the seal. I still had alittle trouble dropping it on, but not as bad as last time, would have helped if I had another person. Right now it is not bolted in, I was going to let it sit till I got home from work to put any preasure on the seal, just let it harden right now. I used the ultra cooper sealant. Is there anything else I should do?

I just want to put in a good plug here for Felpro. Not only do they include the manifold gaskets, but also the throttle body gasket, and new injector O-rings in there kit.

 

i did mine about 3 months ago. Used ultra copper rtv and let it cure for 24 hours. before ever staring it up. Your supposed to torque it down before it cures also.

 

I would not let it cure before I torqued it down. It could cause the gaskets on the sides to not seal properly.

 

I didn't have time to torque it down before I left for work. Right now it is sitting on it, but it will only be that way for 5 hours. I will torque it down when I get home. I know it has to cure for 24 hrs.

 

If you use some studs or locators in a couple bolt holes, like many leak fix pages recommend, you should not have a problem dropping it straight on.

 

Yeah, I tried that. My main problem was there was still so much crap in the way of putting the intake back on. I had to pull it out and up to get it off. Just to many wires to drop it straight down.

 

what worked for me was i placed a few broken pencils in the holes. just long enough to be able to have them guide the manifold into place correctly but short enough so i could drop it straight down.

 

I had to do mine two times also. The first time, i used a pencil, but it broke into the lifter valley, "great advice i thought"

The second time, after having to redo (since i had the frront touching the rtv and had to reapply) i used nothing. It moved maybe a quater inch and i said f it.

I would use a cut pushrod or something next time, if i had one laying around.

Half inch of sludge! That is nuts. I have put so much of that PTFE crap to get rid of the IM leak (when i thought it was ok to use, know better now) that i should have seen teh same, but it was spotless

 

hmm must be a good luck or bad luck type of thing. I did it once and everything worked out perfect. It was the first time i had ever taken off an intake manifold on a car. Or maybe im just a automotive genius. lol

 

I don't know, all I know is that it wouldn't drop right on for me, but the second time it barely moved that much so it should be fine. I also found out that my second bolt (from the front) on the passenger side intake is stripped Not sure what to do about that one.......

Anyways, I will find out tomorrow if I did everything right.

 

Thats what I did .....worked great. I used one on the right front and one mid way back on the left. I also did a couple of dry practice tries before I used the rtv to make sure eveything was clear.

Do things right the first time....it may take longer but it will save you time in the long run. Use the studs,get everything out of the way(wires ,water lines, ect.), and torque it down in the proper sequence.