Intake won't bolt on!

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Thats whack! I never heard this and I ran an RPM A/G on a 340 without incident. I must have cranked the bolts in? But tolerances are all over these motors. To the shop, or back to the old intake...
 
MRL Performance said:
This is how the RPM intake is. They fit perfect with the RPM heads, but run high on the stock heads. The Weiand Stealth fits stock heads better, but you have to use 2 sets of gaskets to get a Stealth to fit with RPM heads. To get it right with stock heads, youll have to mill the intake about .040-.060" on each side. This is a common and ongoing issue with these intakes and Eddy does not care.
Click to expand...

Hm, interesting.
the gaskets are .060 inch thick so I'll try to screw the bolts in without the gaskets and if that fits easily then I'll have the intake milled to the gasket thickness. The tape measure shows to old intake and new intake are 2/16 of an inch off so that would mean it needs to be milled to .0625 inch per side. Is that safe? How much is too much?
 
67cuda360 said:
Hm, interesting.
the gaskets are .060 inch thick so I'll try to screw the bolts in without the gaskets and if that fits easily then I'll have the intake milled to the gasket thickness. The tape measure shows to old intake and new intake are 2/16 of an inch off so that would mean it needs to be milled to .0625 inch per side. Is that safe? How much is too much?
Click to expand...

And or buy the felpro .030 thick intake gaskets..


http://www.summitracing.com/parts/FEL-MS90109/
 
If the intake holes line up perfectly with the head holes without the gasket, then the intake should be milled the same amount as the gasket thickness to be used (i.e.: .060"). But a thinner intake gasket can be used to "fine tune" the fit a little more (i.e.: .030"). Just remember or stock-up on the same thickness gaskets for future use.

Even if the bolts screw in easily, try to line up all of the holes on both sides as well as you can to see if the holes are centered-up or still off a bit.

Personally, I never use the end gaskets (front & rear), only silicone.
 
without the gaskets the holes still seem a little bit high, so i'll probably have the machine shop mill the intake to match the old one. Probably be milled to .065" or .070" per side. That should still be pretty safe right?
 
If without the .060" intake gasket the intake holes are still higher than the cylinder head holes, then the intake will need to be milled more than .060" per side. But .005"-.010" may not be enough. How much more will be difficult to estimate.
 
I'm not a machinist, but IMO, if he actually sees how everything fits, he may be able to make a good estimate. But just to take both manifolds to him - I doubt it.
 
I would want my Machinist to see the whole picture and decide the best course of action. Also if only the Sharp edges are hitting, Maybe just "Knocking" down the edge would get the Important Flat surfaces to match up. better. Either way I would make sure you can finger tighten all the bolts all the way in without gaskets in place. I'd like to be able to see exactly where the metal to metal contact is that is holding you up.
 
MRL Performance said:
This is how the RPM intake is. They fit perfect with the RPM heads, but run high on the stock heads. The Weiand Stealth fits stock heads better, but you have to use 2 sets of gaskets to get a Stealth to fit with RPM heads. To get it right with stock heads, youll have to mill the intake about .040-.060" on each side. This is a common and ongoing issue with these intakes and Eddy does not care.
Click to expand...


That's good to know Mike, I was going to get the Air Gap. I certainly don't need the headaches.
 
Only time i ever saw issues like this as far as alignment and not having the bolt holes all line up was due to the heads being milled. The pics you showed as far as I can tell looks like the holes are far enough off that I would not feel comfortable installing the intake like that. Hopefully, your machinist is a good enough one he can figure out how much is safe to take off and make things line up. I agree with what others have said about him needing to see the whole works to know exact what he needs to do. I personally would not feel comfortable if it was my car, to just give him my old intake, and expect him to know what to do on my new one. I would want him to see the whole scenario.
 
I had the same problem with the air gap on my 66 Cuda with 360. It took 3 sets of gaskets and retrying until I got it to work. On the front and rear of the intake I had to use the cork gaskets plus silicone to seal the ends. Just try positioning the intake with gaskets and remember what order you used until you get it to line up enough to bolt down. It never lined up perfect but is on the car. Good Luck fitting it. Not happy with the fit.
 
bbeep71 said:
I had the same problem with the air gap on my 66 Cuda with 360. It took 3 sets of gaskets and retrying until I got it to work. On the front and rear of the intake I had to use the cork gaskets plus silicone to seal the ends. Just try positioning the intake with gaskets and remember what order you used until you get it to line up enough to bolt down. It never lined up perfect but is on the car. Good Luck fitting it. Not happy with the fit.
Click to expand...

So you didn't end up milling the intake? What gasket thickness did you end up using? When my intake sits on the engine without any gaskets there is still a slight gap at the front and rear bottom (where the end seals would go) of the intake.

I'm going to bolt it down today without any gaskets and If that works okay I'm going to have the intake milled .060" (gasket thickness) - .070" on both sides. The flanges meet the heads very nicely and there are no gaps or movement there. It just sits up a little too high :)

Unfortunately this is a long weekend here in Canada so I won't be able to talk the the engine shop until Tuesday.
 
I used the fel- pro gaskets recommended by Edelbrock in the instructions. I ruined the first set because I put sealer on the gaskets and couldn't get the bolts placed in the manifold. I kept trying different bolt holes until I could get all of them placed in the manifold. The final time it was still tough to get all bolts installed but it worked. It is also difficult to torque the bolts down in certain areas. My friend with eddy heads didn't have this problem. I didn't mill heads and I believe the heads and block was never milled.
 
Okay, UPDATE LOL
I took the intake to the machine shop (several) and the consensus seems to be that it would be best to first try to fit it with a thin gasket (since the intake bolts on okay without one). They say it is hard to make both flanges Identical when milling the intake because of the angles, so a thin gasket is the way to go they say :). I have ordered some thin gasket paper (.016" and .032") just in case I need to make my own.

I have also bought some thin (.020) metal crush gaskets see picture. These fit great on the heads and I prefer them to the paper since they have the nice crush sleeves.

Quick question before I put them on. The crush sleeves face the cylinder heads (says so right on the gaskets). Where do I need to put RTV? I assume around the water passages for sure but would it also be a good idea to put it around the intake ports (what RTV should I use since most don't work well with fuel?).

Also on what side of this thin gasket should I use RTV, just the cylinder head side or the intake side or on both....? Just want to cross all my T's and dot the I's before I get started LOL
 

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the metal gaskets will react to the aluminum intake and corrode fast, if you even try this...rtv the entire gasket and at the water cross overs at each end real good yet at the same time dont have rtv squishing into the ports.

If it were me, id pay them to let me use the mill myself, cause thats all bs about the angles being off.lol ....you just spin the cutter by hand once you have the intake bolt to and the intake face leveled on the jig to make sure the cut line is even all the way across..
 
yeah I just read about the steel and aluminum reaction, I created a separate thread about this gasket with exactly that question LOL. I guess I shouldn't use the steel ones. DAMN IT, thought I had found the easy way out :)
 
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