Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Duratec Performance Of intakes and GUNK!

So, I tore down the entire intake system today. ICK! The upper plenum
was just as bad as last year when I had it off and cleaned it. The lower
was worse. And the heads -- wow, talk about crud.

I could see the valves fairly easily with a flashlight. The primaries are
pristine, but the valve at the end of the secondary has crud all over the
stem. I can see how extrude honing the head ports can benefit, the
passages are very rough from the casting.

I spent a couple hours, with the help of my father-in-law and wife,
cleaning the lower intake. Man, that stuff is baked on! The head was
hopeless -- I don't know what to do in order to clean it out and not get
nasty bits in the cylinders. I haven't even touched the upper yet.

The seals between the fuel manifold and lower were intact, but quite
hard. There was oil in between all seals and some leaking out of the
lower gasket onto the heads. Yuck. There was oil in one of the injector
connectors -- that can't be good.

I still want to get the injectors out of the rail and replace the
o-rings. I can't seem to find an injector removal tool anywhere. Can
anyone suggest a good place? I'm going to try Sears after failing to find
one at the auto parts stores. Napa might be a possibility, too.

One bad thing -- the little plastic grommets that hold the IMRC linkage
together disintegrated when I took the lower apart. Not sure how I'm
going to fix that, as they probably won't be in stock at any dealer and I
can't see any parts stores carrying anything like it.

I turned the stop screw for the secondaries so that they don't close
completely. I think this is critical in order to keep things from baking
on again. Without airflow, the oil just cakes onto the secondary
passages.

I replaced the fuel pressure regulator, too. Pretty easy, and might as
well while everything is apart.

Well, I'll be back at it again tomorrow. Hopefully I can find an injector
remover and replace those o-rings.

-Lance

I have agree with you… I cleaned my upper and butterfly values @ 60k, and I was in shock at the thickness of the layer of crap that was caked on. I would guess that any benefit from the extrude hone process on my SVT is totally negated within 15 thousand miles.

As far as the injector removal tool… Yep NAPA will be your best bet!

What prompted you do all this work? Are you having some performance issues, or is the butt dyno telling you your missing that extra something?

-burg

I've been having detonation problems, so I suspected a leaking seal somewhere -- particularly the injector manifold to lower intake seals. It appears that perhaps the lower intake gaskets were leaking a bit, too.

-Lance

I put images here:
http://www.blueskyhorizon.com/images/intake/

-Lance

Ewwwwww! That's nasty! I thought mine was bad, but not nearly as gunked as yours were. I had the same deal with oil in the plug connectors - I think the harness touches the manifold and when the upper to lower seeps PCV oil goo it drains into the connector - great design there! I think it's time to buy a whole lot of TB cleaner and just fill er up! Maybe if you just spray the heck out of the 2ndary valves it'll disolve the gunk into a more or less safe to burn goo?

If you need it really bad, I can pull the 2ndary grommets off my extra lower and next day them to you - don't know if you need them for Monday though.

Let me know - also I think someone here got there injectors out without the tool - maybe a blunt 1/8 inch socket drive to push them out from the bottom???

Well, its all done and the car runs well.

I will more extensively test once I have grommets for the IMRC linkage. Thanks for the offer Scott, but I'll just get them from the local dealer (if they aren't a bazillion dollars.) I'm not in a hurry since I have a second car. I think I noticed a difference with the secondaries propped open a bit -- it took a minute for the computer to figure out how to idle smoothly.

The injectors were not that hard to get out. I just carefully pried them out with a large flat-bladed screwdriver. A major gush of fuel comes out with each injector, so definitely keep a rag underneath! The O-rings were very easy to replace, and the old ones had spider cracks on the injector mating surface.

Amazingly enough, when I cranked it over for the first time, it fired right up as if I hadn't even done anything!

I put more images up at the above URL. Scott, you'll get a kick out of one of them!

I am going to spend some time figuring out how to put a filter in the PCV system -- maybe that will discourage the gunk from building up so fast!

I will put the SVT throttle body on as soon as Mr. Jenkins gets me the terminal pins that fit in the connector. The pins in the older style square TPS connector do not fit in the newer oval connector. At that time I will grind on the upper a bit to get more air flow, but I sure am tempted to pick up an SVT upper and lower. The ports on the non-SVT parts are the same size, where the SVT secondaries are a few mm bigger.

That's it for now, I'm tired from my two day intake journey

-Lance

Nice job on the intake rebuild! Did you replace the grommets on the injectors? Were these parts available at the dealer? I'm looking at doing this in a week or so, sort of a 100K miles celebration I guess. Thanks for posting the pics, it will be a big help for me. Did you need a special tool to diconnect the fuel fittings? I'm planning on new gaskets all around, but am not sure what else I should buy ahead of time? Any additional info appreciated.

1. Yes, I replaced the injector O-rings
2. I didn't disconnect the fuel rail from the fuel lines. It is fairly easy to move around without disconnecting it.

Here's everything I replaced, from Bill Jenkins:

F5RZ-9P867-A x 6, fuel rail to lower intake seals, total $13.32

F5RZ-9229-AB x 6, top injector O-ring (the large one), total $17.16

F0PZ-9229-A x 1, O-ring kit (comes with 10 O-rings for the nose of the injector), total $7.57

F4SZ-9C968-A x 1, fuel pressure regulator, total $41.81

F5RZ-9439-B x 2, lower intake gaskets, total $18.10

I also replaced the upper intake gaskets -- I've had those for a while so I don't have part no's or prices handy.

This whole procedure (description, pics, parts, etc) is only valid for 95-97 vehicles. 98 + uses a different style fuel rail and injector. SVT is different yet again.

-Lance

Thanks for the info Lance! I will be following suit very soon. I am curious how the EGR restrictor has affected the amount of build up in my manifolds since the last time they were cleaned - August 2000.
Also, doesn't the vaucuume operated IMRC that we have in the 95's not work with the SVT lower? I know the OF was working on it but I thought he never finished.

Yes, the SVT lower intake requires modification to work on a 95. When I last spoke with Ray, he said he had finished it, but he never got the chance to install it.

-Lance