installing a upper and lower intake

Its a piece of cake. Plan a whole day for the first time. First time I did it, took me a while, just because its something new, takes time to figure stuff out. But I can have my lower intake ripped off my car in 10 minutes. Make sure to get a normal torque wrench, and do the torque sequence.

The throttle body linkage is easy stuff, im sure youve done that. Take out these 2 bolts, they should be 10mm, its connected to the egr spacer, thatll get all the t/b stuff out of the way. Id leave the egr spacer and t/b one while you take it off just so its easier.
heres the pic of the two bolts before we get ahead of ourselves.



After that, disconnect the 2 hoses going to the egr, the iac connection, the tps connection, and the egr connection, and the egr vacuum hose. You may want to mark the vacuum lines, I didnt have a smog pump so I only had to connect like 5 vacuum lines but it can get confusing if you have more. After that, take off the upper intake plaque, theres 2 long bolts, take those out with a 1/2" socket, and get an extension and get the two smaller bolts, one in the front and on in the back. Then lift up the upper intake alittle and disconnect all the vacuum lines, and pull the pcv hose out of the lower intake. Remeber to label all the lines.

Once you get the upper intake off, now is a good time to drain the coolant, unscrew the plug at the passenger side of the radiator, and take off the cap, MAKE SURE the car is cold. get a pretty big bucket under there and itll all drain out.

If you take out the distributor it makes it ALOT easier, im sure youve done this eailer but take out all the spark plug wires and the cap. Then mark the rotor where it is on the dizzy and mark the dizzy where it is to the block. Tkae out the hold down bolt and wiggle it around alittle till it comes out. Dont take out the spout connector.

Now comes the lower intake. This thing right here is a pain in the ass, youll have to take a big open end wrench and just turn the part that you see the arrow. Theres a pefect angle to get it off youll have to find it.



Also go ahead and take out the act sensor (number 2) becareful when you take it out, mine broke, its an $18 part but its a pain in the ass breaking stuff and having to go buy it. Then pull off number 3, there is also another little connection down under the p/s pump that is the oil sending unit or something for the oil pressure gauge. Take that out. And for number one, like said before the fuel rail can be a pain, but there is four bolts (two of them are being pointed to with arrow number 1, and 2 more on the other side) take those out, wiggle the fuel injectors out, and push it a side, if you dont have the fuel discconect tool dont worry about it, it can be done by just pushing it out of the way and is really easy if you have a freidn holding it. Also take out the two water pump, hoses, they can be a pain but some wd40 and a screw driver will evntually get them. Also get the two heatercore hoses at the back passegner side of the intake, where the two hoses go to the firewall, and of course the radiator hose, to the t-stat housing. Now its time to start taking off the lower intake. Take a normal socket wrench and use a 1/2 socket, may need an extension so you dont beat up your knuckle and just take them out, MAKE SURE you get them all out, you can easily miss one and youll spend hours wondering why the lower wont come off. Once their out, give it a little tug up and it should break loose, maybe jam a screwdriver or crowbar and use a hammer but I dont think thatll be necessary.




Be careful when taking off the intake, not to let too much coolant spill, and DEFINATLY DO NOT let anything fall into the heads. Go ahead and take a razor and clean all the surfaces on the heads, try not to get too much stuff in the lifter valley or in the heads.

Something Jrichker taught me with the lower intake gaskets is to take weather stripping adhesive, it comes in a spray can, and spray it on the lower intake gaskets, the side thats going on the head. When it becomes tacky, put it on the head and line it up with the ports, let it sit for like a minute. Then take blue RTV sealant and put it around the coolant passages on both sides of the gaskets, itll be good to lay it on pretty heavy. For the front and back of the intake, I used the cork gaskets, Jrichker says they work fine so I trust him. The ones that come in the felpro1250 gasket kit have a sticky adhesive that you peel off and you can stick it to the block so it stay in position, VERY nice to have, and you dont have to worry if it moved when you put the intake on. Once the gaskets are on, and the cork gaskets are in place, put some heavy RTV at the ends of the cork gaskets where it meets the intake gasket. And also spread it ontop of the cork gasket.

Before you drop the intake in and do all that, id go ahead and swap all the stuff from the stock intake to the lower, like the egr lines, the act sensor, the pcv gromet, tstat housing, etc.

Making sure the cobra intake is ready to go on, and you have RTV on the gasket around the coolant passages have a friend move all the fuel lines, and harnesses out of the way, and drop the intake into position. Make sure to do it slowly so none of the gaskets move out of position. It would be nice to have studs that screw into the heads so when you put the intake on itll be perfectly lined up and when you have the intake on you can just screw the studs out but if you dont have that it should be fine, you can use pencils or something long and straight, thats what I do. Then put antisieze on the lower intake thread bolts and start putting them on all to hand tight. Take your torque wrench and follow the torque sequence and torque specs, itll take a while to get it, and your arm and back will probably be tired by the end of it, but DO NOT skip this, make sure its done right, and torque wrench costs 20 bucks at autozone and you can find the specs and sequence anywhere. Start connecting all the stuff you took off before. Take pictures so you dont miss anything. This is a pretty detailed write up for an easy job. I may have missed a few things, this whole write up is just in my memory, and also i did this with no a/c so you may have to do some extra work with the a/c compressor, etc. And like I said I may have missed a few things but youll catch it and itll be simple. Good luck. I should probably save this write up lol..