Quality/Fitment of Aftermarket Intake Manifold??

First off, I know this topic has been beaten into the ground and i did numerous searched on it. this concerns the dreaded coolant leaking problems i've read so much about and the sh**tty plastic intake manifold.
i've been through the whole loop now.

A while ago the gasket between the thermostat housing and intake manifold blew out and covered the engine in a nice coat of coolant.... so i replaced the thermostat and the gasket. Leak stopped for a while....

Eventually the car began leaking an extremely tiny small amount of coolant in the same spot but nothing huge so i wasnt too worried. THEN after driving home from school one day, i parked my car and returned 5 min later to get my backpack out. I found ALLLL of my coolant in a puddle on the ground draining down the parking lot. it was the water pump that got messed up when it ran dry because of the first coolant leak, so I replaced the water pump. that specific leak stopped.

The small leak from the thermostat has been bothering me for some time now so i decided to get it checked out and found that the retarded plastic intake manifold is cracked. bang:





Summary:
- multiple coolant leak problems
- intake manifold is cracked and melted
- I NEED A NEW INTAKE MANIFOLD because ford is retarded.


i did numerous searches and found that people have been complaining about the typhoon and then some regarding the trickflow intake and how tight of a sqeeze it is. I need an intake manifold that will work with my accufab tb and plenum. What do you guys recommend quality/fitment-wise??

yea i've been researching the hps hardball'r, but i saw a couple dyno sheets with some great gains, BUt im not sure what kinda mods were on the car because that area gets very grainy. i also dont know about their quality and i read a few things about having to dremmel/cut some rough spots off and stuff??....

i had a feeling that would be the case

...but wont replacing the stock cracked intake with a another new stock plastic intake eventually lead to the same problem further down the road? i've had coolant leak issues constantly now for about 5 months, and its getting pretty annoying to say the least, especially on a car with barely over 30,000 miles on it.

after doing a large amount of research on several different forums, i am gradually beginning to lean towards the HPS hardball'r but its not too widely used yet. I think i'll give the company a call today.

the cooling mod?

it has the aluminum crossover, but the main plastic part is still bound to crack and melt like it did on mine. Mine cracked and melted on both sides under the aluminum peice where the thermostat housing connects AND also cracked/melted directly across from that on the other side. Additionaly, the stock plastic intake manifolds have a tendancy of cracking in the rear as well.

i called HPS today and was surprised to find that they were very nice and helpful in regards to my current situation. I have decided that im going to go with the HPS Hardball'r intake manifold, but there are currently none available. I will have to wait for the next batch.


The guy i talked to at HPS ended up offering to send me a stock PI intake that they pulled of one of their project cars for FREE!!! im payin 20 bucks to get it shipped and i'll install it and just wait a couple weeks for the next batch of HPS Hardball'r manifolds.

interesting. i havent seen that before. thats seems like a fairly simple way to help eliminate the problem from ever happening.