Cleaned my intake now feel a loss of power? Any thoughts?

[Bizzy]

After I cleaned my intake I have noticed that the car dosen't seem as powerful as before. I know my secondaries are working, but I used to notice a very pronounced deepening of the engine's tone when they poped open, I don't hear that anymore. Yet I do see them open and close when I rev the engine. they open at about 3900-4000 or so. I'm goning to replace my questionable intake manifold gasket. Also I totally took the entire intake apart, are the gaskets that are around the secondaries and where the long runners bolt up reusable? They aren't black like the TB or intake gaskets. If I have to I may be replacing those too? If so anyone know part numbers on them?

Any thoughts on how to get the area on top of the engine itself really cleaned up without knocking a bunch of crap into the lower intake? I have a nice pile of dust and junk that is right there along the valve cover seam that just screams to me "don't even try to clean me, you'll knock something into the intake." But if I want to get a good seal with the gaskets I figure that are should be borderline antiseptic to mak sure I get a good seal. I know the torque specs for those bolts is 11-17ft/lbs, but is there a "proper" pattern for which one to do 1st, 2nd.... ect? Any help with what ppl have done to prevent crap getting down into the lower part of the intake would prolly make this task a little easier. I was thinking something like a cut up towel in the ports, with or duct tape over them so that I can use some air to blast away any loose stuff that might be there.

I also wanted to replace the vac lines that are easy to get at when the intake is off, just incase I caused a leak somewhere. I really don't believe that a vac. leak is causeing it but for the $20 in a silicone dress up vac line kit I would rather just replace the lines. I'm really leaning towards the gasket

Has anyone out there replaced any of thier vac. lines on thier engine? If so what size lines do I need to buy. I've been looking all over the internet and many places offer a bunch of different sizes. Primarily I'd like to replace the ones that are comming off the Intake manifold and control the secondaries, and fuel pressure reg. I would guess that they are like 3.5mm or 4mm, which seem to be popular sizes that auto places stock.

Thoughts? already one person has pointed at the intake gaskets first and foremost, I'm just wondering if there is something else I might be missing

<small>[ December 09, 2002, 10:28 AM: Message edited by: netviper ]</small>

 

[rangerj]

Netviper,

I suggest you get a gasket kit that has the intake to heads gaskets, the secondary gaskets (2 each side), and the gaskets for the water box on the throttle body. Auto Zone sells a kit made by Felpro.

When you have the intake runners and plennum off cover the intake ports with tape e.g. wide masking tape. This keeps crap out of the ports. Then you can clean up without worrying about getting stuff into the intake ports.

Cut a small piece of the vacuum hose you want to replace and take it to the auto parts store and get the same size. Replace one piece at a time so you do not get things mixed up.

There is a 14mm, or 9/16 vacuum hose that runs from the middle of the engine valley to the back of the throttle body. This vents the crancase. It is a preformed hose, but, it is straight enough to be replaced with a piece of regular bulk hose. This would be a good time to replace this hose also.

As for torquing the intake to the heads, start in the middle and work out to the ends. Torque the bolts in three stages, for example for 15lbs torque go 5lb, 10lb, 15lb.

Before you torque the intake, leave all the hoses from the plennum to the intake tubes loose, and the nuts that hold the secondaries to the plennum.
Before you put any torque on the intake manifold make sure it sits flat on the heads.

Just as a reminder, the tubes that go into the plennum, before the secondaries, shoud curve downward in the plennum! There is a gasket between the tubes and the plennum, and a gasket between the secondaries and the tubes.

This would also be a good time to replace the three small water hoses at the throttle body. The one "S" shaped hose will have to be "OEM", but the others are straight enough to be bulk hose.

I do not have the prices, part numbers, and or sizes handy, but they are all in the archives, as are the torque references.
Hope this helps, rangerj

 

[BlackOnBlackATX]

you know if you didnt have this problem before then you may just have an air leak and the manifold isnt sitting flat (as was suggested by rangerj) when i had a similiar problem i was told to take a bottle of carb spray and spray around where all the gaskets seat. if you hear the engine rev up a little you have a leak, cuz the carb spray is getting in. maybe this will help a little, maybe not. good luck!

 

[Bizzy]

I bought a pair of intake manifold gaskets today. One dealership had them and it was $32.10 with the tax. I think they were $14 something each, with shipping from FPN i would have paid about the same. I didn't think that the gaskets for the secondaries could be reused, but I'm not taking the intake off again for a while. When I do it's gonna be to clean/powder coat/port match and polish the whole air induction system. I would think that would be a good time for me to replace the gaskets up by the secondaries.

Ya know when I had the whole thing apart I almost screwed up putting the secondaries horns back in. luckily the gaskets had the impressons in them. What I should have done is put a tiny bead of loctite blue gasket material on the ones there on the secondaries and long runners. at least that would have sealed them up till I could buy the right kit. I didn't buy the felpro kit because I read somewhere that it didn't containg the gaskets I was most concerned about, that being the intake to head ones. Plus there was a 2 day wait from every parts place around here. Oh well you live you learn, right?

I also changed my plugs with some nice new AGS32PP's today, and noticed that the one sparkplug well that I had never checked for oil, well it had a little bit in there. Just means I have to figure out where I'm gonna come up with the cahs for doing my valve lash and gaskets of my 60k. Hopefully I can keep up on the slow leak and it won't hurt anything. In 69k miles there was about 1/2cc of oil in the bottom of the well.

I did work from the middle out, cuase that was what "common sense" told me. I didn't see your post here till after I was all done. I torqued everything down to what I figured was "tight" then hit them all with the torque wrench to make sure they were by the book.

I appreciate you guys taking the time to give me a bit of detail. I'm happy to say that my car feels alot better now, and at WOT I really really feel and hear the secondaries open up now. Next project will be finally putting my SHOshop SS y-pipes with cats on.