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Old 05-01-2021, 08:54 PM   #317
IROCZman15
10 Second Club / Meet Coordinator
 
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Roxbury, NJ
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The adventure twists and turns! This one is not fun to type, but it is part of the reality and the journey.






So I planned on going to Island on Friday night for Test and Tune; had the car setup with the drag wheels on and loaded with gear but was watching the weather because there was intermittent and but high winds during the day. Turns out that Island canceled TnT Friday night, and that made sense because the weather was indeed lousy. So my weekend plans changed and I decided I would go to a car show with some buddies in Sparta. Just had to switch the wheels and unload the gear and put the sound system and passenger seat in. Since that was easy, I decided that I would finally tackle a small task that I had wanted to do this winter:


I have not been a fan of the Holley Coolant Temp Sensor being mounted front-and-center in the top of the intake manifold. To me it is unsightly and also, it reads the temp of the coolant just before it exists the engine/thermostat. Figured it would be more helpful to know the coolant temp in the cylinder head instead. So, the holley sensor is hard wired to the sniper unit, but MANY people relocate it by simply cutting the wire open and splicing in wires to extend it. Simple. Easy. No sweat at all. In doing so, I had to drain some Evans Coolant out,and I guess more spilled than I planned on. I was able to save some, but not much..

see the location of the sensor, like a weird totem-pole; no thanks


sensor moved, but pipe plug not installed during this photo, because this is where I added the remaining coolant into the engine. I put in two new and matching pipe plugs on each side of the thermostat housing.





So I moved the sensor after extending the wires. Easy. Fired up the car and was adding back the salvaged Evans coolant, as well as 1/2 gallon of Evans that I had remaining on my shelf. Sadly it was not enough to get everything filled, but I fired up the engine anyways and left it get up to temp. Temp climbed pretty quick and I knew the sensor was going to read higher, but it got real hot real quick, rocketing up to 230 and I shut it off. Its 8:30pm now on Friday night, and no local sores carry Evans. I also notice that the pesky SLOW and minimal drip that I have noticed under the car during the past few months is back, and is now steadily dripping coolant. My heart sinks, as I realize that I have made the slow leak now become worse.

Woke up early and drove my truck over to Power Portal Automotive in Hackettstown where they sell Evans. Got there 8am before anyone who works there arrived and bought 2 gallons. Drove home expecting to be able to put the coolant in, burp the system and see how bad the leak is....and if its not bad I was going to drive up to the car show in Sparta. Turns out the leak is even worse than last night, so I bag the car show idea, pull the car back in the garage, start cleaning up the the mess in the driveway and figuring out where the leak at the back of the engine is coming from. Soon I realize that it is fortunately NOT a head gasket...but its the back of the intake manifold. It is not going to fix itself, so I start digging in and disassembling everything. My thoughts were confirmed that the intake manifold gasket much have been very slightly breached before, and the events of Friday night probably opened the gasket's hole up even more. It is at the back of the engine, on top of cylinder 7. FYI, I know that I committed the cardinal sin of intake manifold removal when I used a screwdriver to separate it from the heads. As I was doing it, I knew I should not be doing it, but I was just so damn frustrated at that point in time). I will shave the divots and make sure the new gaskets seal nicely.















Very thankful it is not a head gasket. Just to be sure, I checked and torqued the head bolts that I could reach with the valve cover off, and along the bottom rail.





So, I gotta get gaskets for my Edelbrock Victor Jr. manifold. From my research it looks like Edelbrock #7201 or Fel-Pro 1206 or Fel-Pro 1205 gaskets. I plan on using a bead of black RTV on the front and rear china walls. Right? or what else?

The cooling passage dead ends here at the intake manifold. it does not cross flow, Anything you suggest I do to prevent this from happening again? Evans coolant runs at a very low pressure but I don't want to have to deal with this again.






Torque to 25 foot pounds in the proper order/sequence.






While I am in here, I am going to re-do some wiring and tighten things up to be even cleaner. I MIGHT take the time to drill and tap a hole in the actual manifold to thread in a NPT fitting that will allow me to run my PCV vacuum hose to this port, instead of the very tiny vac port of the sniper unit. Thoughts? I've seen it done before, and it will clean up my vacuum hoses at the back of the engine. Perhaps it can even be capped later if I do get an electric vacuum pump, OR I can run a semi-permanent vacuum gauge to this port if needed. Thoughts on sizes or if this could be a problem? I do know its common to do.

I am also going to relocate the huge oil pressure sender unit because I have never liked where it has been located near the firewall. Its bulky and in the way of wiring and will be in the way of how I route my nitrous lines/solenoids later on. So I want to move it to the oil pressure port that is directly above the oil filter on this Dart SHP block. This is the same port that I have used to check/verify my high oil pressure issues in the past. The tester gauge has always read exactly the same as my dashboard gauge, so I know that if I move the sender to this blocks lower port, it will read correctly. Any thoughts or advice before I do this?


So yea, exciting, but unplanned. The leak was not going to get better on its own, so its better it happened here in my driveway instead of when I was possibly real far from home out at an event.
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Last edited by IROCZman15; 05-01-2021 at 09:01 PM.
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