Intake Install Issues

What you're explaining usually occurs when the heads have been shaved and/or block has been decked. Anytime you remove material from the top of the block or the bottom of the heads, it will make the heads sit lower and closer together because of the V shape of the engine. This will make the intake too wide so it won't sit all the way down on the heads and cause alignment issues and leaks.

The fix to this is to shave the same amount of material off the mating surfaces of the intake... no need to change the angle on the mating surfaces. This will make the intake narrower and THEN it will sit correctly. Figuring out how much material has been removed is the question and it must be a total of what has been removed from the top of the block and bottom of the heads if both were shaved.

My heads were shaved .015 and my block had been decked, .005 I think. The intake I am running was given to me by my father-n-law. He was running heads that had been shaved .080 and the intake had been shaved to match. I had issues getting my lower to seal and I was getting coolant in the exhaust.

I bought a thicker set of gaskets, Fel-pros (don't remember what part#). I was still getting coolant dripping from the exhaust. I was getting so frustrated that I threw my torque wrench across the garage. Luckily, a good friend of mine came by and lent me some good advice.

He works on forklifts and told me that anytime a head gasket blows and coolant gets into the exhaust, the mufflers fill up with coolant. He suggested that I take the car for a good spin and get the exhaust hot and blow all the coolant out. I followed his advice, and twenty minutes later I had no coolant coming out of the tailpipe. Looks like after the first gasket leak, I was just pissing away gaskets thinking that it was still leaking.

Maybe try sealing it up good and try giving it a spin around the block a few times. Maybe it will dry up.

Let us know, good luck with it!

Almost sounds like the intake was originally set up for angle milled heads. When this is done the intake mating surfaces have to be milled at a little bit different angle to correct them misalignment. Happens often with circle track stuff especially.

If you set the timing at 0° spout out, it's going to be a turd...if it even runs at all. If you advanced it with the spout out, it's probably going to run a whole lot better. Doesn't matter if the spout is in or out if you're turning the distributor. The computer doesn't care. The spout should be out, however, to CHECK the timing with a timing light.

I'm running AFR 185 Comp (angle milled to increase compression) with the Holley Systemax intake (uncut), and used the Fel Pro 1262R, which is thicker (.090) and has larger ports (2.25x1.40) to help ensure the line up of the gasket with the head/intake ports. when I trial fit the 1262, they didn't line up quite right. I use a thin layer of the ultra black around the coolant passages, and a thick bead on the ends. If you turn the distributor, it will advance or retard the timing, depending on which way you turn it. Zero degrees is close enough for the car to run, not great, but run. Good luck, we have all been frustrated with something on our cars at some point!

Yeah, spout out, means you see the Base timing of the engine. Twisting the dizzy advances the timing no matter what. The computer merely advances the timing based on the program and the rpm of the engine based on certain parameters. I would of course set your base timing within 1-2 degress +/- of 10* though.