Cracked Intake - WITH Aluminum Crossover

[Mustang5L5]

The plastic intakes commonly crack. That's what the whole legal issue was dealing with.


The aluminum ones only tend to crack if the thermostat housing is bolted on too tightly. I've heard of it happening, but it's not as common as the 96-00 plastic intakes cracking.

Yes it does happen, but 01-04 owners shouldn't lose sleep over it. It's about as common as your alt going out, or some other component.

 

[damacman]

I'm currently on the road. I saved both gaskets and the intake just in case . . . when I get home, I'll take some pics and post them up here. I don't see how over tightening the thermo housing could crack this place in the manifold. Pics will help to describe.

Yeah, I had coolant in a couple of the plug holes too, but it wasn't that much so I vacuumed it out and that seems to be just fine. Got the new intake from the Ford dealer with a little bit of a "buddy deal" but it appears to be identical to the one I pulled off. Either way, it's all back together and runs great.

Interesting to hear how many others have heard / seen of this . . .

 

[5spd GT]

Does anyone have a cracked PI intake that you cannot use or is just taking up shelf-space?

If so, I want it for some $$$$

 

[TrueBlue03]

it's not as uncommon as you'd think.

Mine also melted at the thermostat housing WITH the aluminum crossover as well. Except it basically exploaded coolant like a volcano all over the entire engine bay.


sucks man. sorry to hear... and like others have mentioned...perform a carefull inspection of the rest of the engine bay

problems from my intake manifold cracking and melting continue to plague me to this day. i just had to replace my plugs because i was misfiring several months after the incident most likely caused by all the coolant sitting in the spark plug wells and all over the boots.

IE: spark plugs getting gunked up and corroded, multiple water pumps going bad, coolant somehow finding its way into the mass airflow sensor and all down under the intake manifold on top of the block and running all down the front of the block

 

[SRT Handz]

so this thread is officially BS due to lack of Evidence

 

[TrueBlue03]

lol you guys just love to play that role

only pics i have. crappy quality i know.... camera phone was all i had at the time.
you are looking at the passage right under the thermostat housing & aluminum crossover that cracked and melted.

The circle on the right is showing the plastic portion of the intake manifold that cracked and melted under the thermostat housing.

 

[Notchbck93]

I am curious if the orifice on the aluminum piece is bigger than the orifice on the composite piece which eventually led to the erosion of the composite material.

It would appear that coolant was bypassing the rubber ring and eroding away the composite material.

 

[TrueBlue03]

Mine appeared to have happened all at once, but then again, I'm not totally sure. I believe my thermostat malfunctioned, and in turn, caused things to heat up fast. Then i got an instant explosion of coollant which sprayed out of the cracked/melted part all over the engine bay, onto my belt, battery and alternator causing the car to lose electrical power.

Headlights and Interior lights flickered then went out, I lost power steering, AND I lost power braking all while doing 70mph on the highway at around 10pm at night.... what a fun night it was!

 

[Notchbck93]

Mine appeared to have happened all at once, but then again, I'm not totally sure. I believe my thermostat malfunctioned, and in turn, caused things to heat up fast. Then i got an instant explosion of coollant which sprayed out of the cracked/melted part all over the engine bay, onto my belt, battery and alternator causing the car to lose electrical power.

Headlights and Interior lights flickered then went out, I lost power steering, AND I lost power braking all while doing 70mph on the highway at around 10pm at night.... what a fun night it was!

Report it to NHSTA. Enough life-threatening malfunctions cause them to step up and bat for the little guy.

Bullit intakes for all

 

[TrueBlue03]

i'll definitely look into that. checkin out the site now.


BTW to the original poster:
wasnt trying to hijack your thread. just wanted to post pics so everyone can see what we're talkin about!

 

[cstang99]

I was more than a little worried about using the replacement aluminum/plastic manifold when my plastic manifold cracked at 119,000 miles, so I bought an aluminum performance manifold & was amazed at the performance gain. I was so happy with it, that I bought the matching upper plenium & 75mm throttle body. It really made a BIG difference in performance & wasn't hard to install.