Finished up the final touches on a PI Intake swap on my '96 GT this morning. I started on Tuesday but between crappy cold and drizzly weather, me not being in a big hurry and unanticipated delays, it took a couple extra days. I've been wanting to do the PI swap forever but kept putting it off. I was finally forced to when the car started leaking coolant near the intake - turned out to be the gasket and not the intake but mo point putting the stocker back on when there's a perfectly good PI sitting in the garage.
Tuesday: flushed out the cooling system and tore everything down.
The old coolant was dirty but clean, if you know what I mean, and overdue for replacement. The radiator was easy enough to drain and then the book said to simply remove the block drain plugs on either side to empty the block. Hah! They failed to mention that the drain holes are under the engine mounts! So, instead, I stuffed a garden hose in every coolant hose I could fine till it ran clear. At some point I took the thermostat out, put the hose in the degas tank, fired the car up and let the water pump push fresh water through everything and back out the upper radiator hose.
Actually removing the intake wasn't much trouble and didn't take very long. Left the fuel rails in the car and pushed them to the side out of the way. Disconnected the wiring harness from the crank sensor back to the firewall and pushed it to either side. Disconnected the EGR valve from the throttle body and left it in the car because I was afraid the EGR tube would twist rather than come out of the valve.
The water pump was a bitch to get out. It broke my 5 pound sledge (well, the handle, which was kinda old and rotted anyway). I broke both ears off the pump prying on it. After banging on it with a hammer on a chunk of wood for a while, I finally got enough of a gap to get the crow bar in there and pry it out. The heater tube in the valley was a pain too with the two bolts on the back of the head - the PI tube mount is much better. The nipple was a bastard too - it took a lot of pounding to break loose and by the time it finally broke loose, the end was too deformed to fit through the hole. I cut off the deformed part with a tiny plumber's pipe cutter - beat the hell out of taking a hacksaw to it.
I planned to RTV the coolant ports in two stages, first I'd fill the corner of the port with RTV and then later, when I put the intake on, I'd RTV the gasket to the glob in the port. That way, I could be satisfied that the RTV in the head was going to be up to the job before I bolted the intake on. I knew the curing times were going to be longer because of the cold weather so I started that as soon as I could and then worked on other stuff.
Mid-afternoon I remembered that I forgot to ever get the 2nd coolant sensor hole drilled and tapped so I set off in search of a machine shop who could knock that out. Finally found a place that could do it and they said it'd be ready the next day which was fine because I wasn't going to do much more that day anyway and they said it's be $15 for a drill & tap which sounded good to me.
Wednesday: Replaced all the injector O-rings and pintel caps while watching the Overhaulin' marathon on DSC.
Called the machine shop around lunchtime to see if my intake was ready - no, they had to order a tap (wtf!?) and it wouldn't be ready for another day. Argh! I checked on the RTV and apparently it was just too cold for it to set up properly. One of them didn't stick at all and came right off when I poked it - the other stuck a little better but was still uncured in the middle, even after almost 20 hours. I decided to start over and JB Weld the heads instead. I cut little triangular forms out of card stock and taped them into place with duct tape to keep the JB Weld from running all over the place before it set up - the paper forms worked perfectly and the small amount of paper left in there would just dissolve easily. I think that was about all I did Wednesday as it started raining and it was too freaking cold to be working without sunshine.
Thursday: Slept late and got off to a late start.
Called the machine shop mid-morning and the intake was ready. Got down there to pick it up and asked the guy for a new battery terminal clamp while I was there and he grabs one and says, "OK, that'll be $47." I asked him how much the terminal was and he said two dollars. I told him that I was expecting the intake to be $15 dollars and not $45 and he started protesting but then said fine and gives it to me for $15. Then he starts saying something about them getting $65/hr for labor and I'm thinking, yeah, that sounds about right 'cause it should be a 10 or 15 minute job. Anyway, back to work.
The JB Weld was cured, at least enough to start working on so I grabbed a file and started grinding it down level with the head. Then I cleaned out the intake ports and spark plug holes, pulled the plugs and turned the motor over a few times to get any coolant & gas that might still be hanging around out of the cylinders. Put the PI intake on and got it bolted down - I did put some extra RTV around the corner of the coolant ports in case there were any surface imperfections.
Started putting everything else back together. Put a new water pump in. Found a vacuum line that was broken in that network of tiny plastic lines that come off the throttle body so I had to go later get a piece of tiny vacuum hose to patch it. The PCV elbow was in bad shape too but I couldn't find the correct piece so it's temporarily fixed with a piece of coolant hose while I procure the correct elbow. I broke off the temp sensor when mounting it on the PI intake, then, not learning from my mistake, I managed do crack the temp sending unit too so I had to pick up a pair of them while I was out.
I had both a a NPI and PI alternator and a PI bracket. I would have had to cut a arm off the PI bracket because it hit the temp sending unit and it also didn't have the stand-offs for the spark plug wire so I used my NPI alternator and modified the old bracket by drilling a new mounting hole where it attaches to the intake - I was only able to drill one side because the leg of one of the stand-offs was in the way of where the 2nd hole would be. I'm going to go by the Ford dealer and see if I can get the correct alternator bracket for a NPI car with an aluminum corssover intake because mine is ugly and could potentially let the alternator get out of alignment, although it's probably unlikely.
Every thing went back together smoothly, although I had to unbolt the fuel rails a couple of times because I kept forgetting what needed to go on first and then I was trying to figure out how the wiring harness was supposed to snake through there. I also snapped a throttle body mounting bolt - it doesn't seem to be leaking there but I'm going to have to pull the TB and see if I can get it out before it does start causing problems.
Finally got the car completely back together except for the strut tower brace late afternoon and fired it up. I started up but was missing on one cylinder - I cut it off and reseated all the plug wires and injector connectors and started it up again. This time it was hitting on all cylinders but I started smelling gas from the engine compartment - I found fuel pooling around the number 5 & 6 injectors. I pushed on the fuel rail and wiggled the injectors around and tried again and then I found that the gas was coming from the schrader valve. Poking it a few times didn't fix it but then I realized there was a valve I could grab off the PI rails I wasn't using. I started to swap them but then decided to call it a day because company was coming over and I needed to get cleaned up and I should probably really let the RTV cure a while longer before I put any pressure on it.
Friday: swapped schrader valve out, started car and let it come up to temp while monitoring the water level and watching for leaks. Got a little scare as the block started getting warm and the residual coolant and other gunk that had gotten in the valley burned off. Once that was gone, I couldn't find any leaks and everything seemed to be working properly.
I took it for a drive and it felt good - took it out on a windy back road once I was reasonably sure it wasn't going to blow up and was able to really flog it. Power feels really good all the way up to 6K RPMs now - wish I had shorter gears and a closer ratio transmission so I could use more than just 2nd gear. Part throttle response feels better too - crisper and more responsive at low, cruising RPMs - although it's possible that I accidentally fixed some minor vacuum leak along the way. The car sounds a little different too, throatier and more aggressive.
I think I hit all the highlights and lowlights.
Tuesday: flushed out the cooling system and tore everything down.
The old coolant was dirty but clean, if you know what I mean, and overdue for replacement. The radiator was easy enough to drain and then the book said to simply remove the block drain plugs on either side to empty the block. Hah! They failed to mention that the drain holes are under the engine mounts! So, instead, I stuffed a garden hose in every coolant hose I could fine till it ran clear. At some point I took the thermostat out, put the hose in the degas tank, fired the car up and let the water pump push fresh water through everything and back out the upper radiator hose.
Actually removing the intake wasn't much trouble and didn't take very long. Left the fuel rails in the car and pushed them to the side out of the way. Disconnected the wiring harness from the crank sensor back to the firewall and pushed it to either side. Disconnected the EGR valve from the throttle body and left it in the car because I was afraid the EGR tube would twist rather than come out of the valve.
The water pump was a bitch to get out. It broke my 5 pound sledge (well, the handle, which was kinda old and rotted anyway). I broke both ears off the pump prying on it. After banging on it with a hammer on a chunk of wood for a while, I finally got enough of a gap to get the crow bar in there and pry it out. The heater tube in the valley was a pain too with the two bolts on the back of the head - the PI tube mount is much better. The nipple was a bastard too - it took a lot of pounding to break loose and by the time it finally broke loose, the end was too deformed to fit through the hole. I cut off the deformed part with a tiny plumber's pipe cutter - beat the hell out of taking a hacksaw to it.
I planned to RTV the coolant ports in two stages, first I'd fill the corner of the port with RTV and then later, when I put the intake on, I'd RTV the gasket to the glob in the port. That way, I could be satisfied that the RTV in the head was going to be up to the job before I bolted the intake on. I knew the curing times were going to be longer because of the cold weather so I started that as soon as I could and then worked on other stuff.
Mid-afternoon I remembered that I forgot to ever get the 2nd coolant sensor hole drilled and tapped so I set off in search of a machine shop who could knock that out. Finally found a place that could do it and they said it'd be ready the next day which was fine because I wasn't going to do much more that day anyway and they said it's be $15 for a drill & tap which sounded good to me.
Wednesday: Replaced all the injector O-rings and pintel caps while watching the Overhaulin' marathon on DSC.
Called the machine shop around lunchtime to see if my intake was ready - no, they had to order a tap (wtf!?) and it wouldn't be ready for another day. Argh! I checked on the RTV and apparently it was just too cold for it to set up properly. One of them didn't stick at all and came right off when I poked it - the other stuck a little better but was still uncured in the middle, even after almost 20 hours. I decided to start over and JB Weld the heads instead. I cut little triangular forms out of card stock and taped them into place with duct tape to keep the JB Weld from running all over the place before it set up - the paper forms worked perfectly and the small amount of paper left in there would just dissolve easily. I think that was about all I did Wednesday as it started raining and it was too freaking cold to be working without sunshine.
Thursday: Slept late and got off to a late start.
Called the machine shop mid-morning and the intake was ready. Got down there to pick it up and asked the guy for a new battery terminal clamp while I was there and he grabs one and says, "OK, that'll be $47." I asked him how much the terminal was and he said two dollars. I told him that I was expecting the intake to be $15 dollars and not $45 and he started protesting but then said fine and gives it to me for $15. Then he starts saying something about them getting $65/hr for labor and I'm thinking, yeah, that sounds about right 'cause it should be a 10 or 15 minute job. Anyway, back to work.
The JB Weld was cured, at least enough to start working on so I grabbed a file and started grinding it down level with the head. Then I cleaned out the intake ports and spark plug holes, pulled the plugs and turned the motor over a few times to get any coolant & gas that might still be hanging around out of the cylinders. Put the PI intake on and got it bolted down - I did put some extra RTV around the corner of the coolant ports in case there were any surface imperfections.
Started putting everything else back together. Put a new water pump in. Found a vacuum line that was broken in that network of tiny plastic lines that come off the throttle body so I had to go later get a piece of tiny vacuum hose to patch it. The PCV elbow was in bad shape too but I couldn't find the correct piece so it's temporarily fixed with a piece of coolant hose while I procure the correct elbow. I broke off the temp sensor when mounting it on the PI intake, then, not learning from my mistake, I managed do crack the temp sending unit too so I had to pick up a pair of them while I was out.
I had both a a NPI and PI alternator and a PI bracket. I would have had to cut a arm off the PI bracket because it hit the temp sending unit and it also didn't have the stand-offs for the spark plug wire so I used my NPI alternator and modified the old bracket by drilling a new mounting hole where it attaches to the intake - I was only able to drill one side because the leg of one of the stand-offs was in the way of where the 2nd hole would be. I'm going to go by the Ford dealer and see if I can get the correct alternator bracket for a NPI car with an aluminum corssover intake because mine is ugly and could potentially let the alternator get out of alignment, although it's probably unlikely.
Every thing went back together smoothly, although I had to unbolt the fuel rails a couple of times because I kept forgetting what needed to go on first and then I was trying to figure out how the wiring harness was supposed to snake through there. I also snapped a throttle body mounting bolt - it doesn't seem to be leaking there but I'm going to have to pull the TB and see if I can get it out before it does start causing problems.
Finally got the car completely back together except for the strut tower brace late afternoon and fired it up. I started up but was missing on one cylinder - I cut it off and reseated all the plug wires and injector connectors and started it up again. This time it was hitting on all cylinders but I started smelling gas from the engine compartment - I found fuel pooling around the number 5 & 6 injectors. I pushed on the fuel rail and wiggled the injectors around and tried again and then I found that the gas was coming from the schrader valve. Poking it a few times didn't fix it but then I realized there was a valve I could grab off the PI rails I wasn't using. I started to swap them but then decided to call it a day because company was coming over and I needed to get cleaned up and I should probably really let the RTV cure a while longer before I put any pressure on it.
Friday: swapped schrader valve out, started car and let it come up to temp while monitoring the water level and watching for leaks. Got a little scare as the block started getting warm and the residual coolant and other gunk that had gotten in the valley burned off. Once that was gone, I couldn't find any leaks and everything seemed to be working properly.
I took it for a drive and it felt good - took it out on a windy back road once I was reasonably sure it wasn't going to blow up and was able to really flog it. Power feels really good all the way up to 6K RPMs now - wish I had shorter gears and a closer ratio transmission so I could use more than just 2nd gear. Part throttle response feels better too - crisper and more responsive at low, cruising RPMs - although it's possible that I accidentally fixed some minor vacuum leak along the way. The car sounds a little different too, throatier and more aggressive.
I think I hit all the highlights and lowlights.
