SilentDawn
10-29-2011, 09:16 PM
Basically, I'll start out with a bio...
Engine bay painted and assembled; ready for engine:
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f143/sd_silentdawn/IMG_0700.jpg
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f143/sd_silentdawn/IMG_0699.jpg
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f143/sd_silentdawn/IMG_0704.jpg
Doing a clean up of the engine bay, since I pulled the engine/tranny for a bad clutch. It was installed backwards by the PO.
It had massive amounts of overspray on everything in the engine bay...Silver paint flaking off from the unscuffed original black paint. And someone thought it would be fun to spray LizardSkin on just parts of the engine bay...Over unsanded gloss.
The whole car needs to be stripped. It used to be black...Someone painted some sort of silver (maybe house paint? :stickoutt) over that...And it never even cured...Then someone did a poor 2 stage silver (not an OEM silver) over that...Leaving bubbles of paint under it, cracked filler, sand scratches. In some places the paint is so thick, the side moldings won't clip on firmly.
Anyhow...I stripped and painted the engine bay black. Cleaned up all of the plastic parts from overspray. Tidied up things...
Got the engine back in and such now. Sucks I have to do all of this work outside infront of my home garage...Not much space and no lift. Didn't have the room to take up a bay for a month in the shop.
My ISSUE now. (finally)
Fitting the intake manifold. Particularly the support brackets.
They seem to lift the manifold up by a large amount. If I torque the manifold nuts down without the supports then the bracket for the oil dipstick tube is above the nut plate by a full hole. It cannot be "pushed" into place by lifting the manifold. The manifold sits about 1/4" to 1/2" too low.
I'm curious...Because when this thing was on the road...Under acceleration I'd have a whistling, like a small intake leak. I'm thinking when the supports are installed, its lifting the lower part or the intake flange away from the head and not getting a strong enough seal.
Yes...The lower nuts on the brackets are loose. Even with the nuts on the intake flange loose it takes a hefty lift and push to get even the front support bracket in place to line up on the manifold.
Could I leave the support brackets off, to ensure a good, even torque on the flange? I've removed the butterfly for the traction control joke and the spacer on the throttle body. So there isn't quite as much weight on the end of the manifold.
I'm more concerned about getting an even seal on the mating flange between the head and manifold than having the manifold flange crack. If I ruin a manifold..I'll just do an M50 swap.
So any ideas on why the manifold isn't sitting right? Or is this pretty much standard on every one? And could I leave the brackets off for just easy of maintenance?
I don't seem to recall having issues before on other E36's like this where the manifold brackets won't line up by this far of a margin. Generally as long as you have the mating flange loose and the bottom nuts on the supports loose...It doesn't take much to get everything to line right up.
Engine bay painted and assembled; ready for engine:
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f143/sd_silentdawn/IMG_0700.jpg
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f143/sd_silentdawn/IMG_0699.jpg
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f143/sd_silentdawn/IMG_0704.jpg
Doing a clean up of the engine bay, since I pulled the engine/tranny for a bad clutch. It was installed backwards by the PO.
It had massive amounts of overspray on everything in the engine bay...Silver paint flaking off from the unscuffed original black paint. And someone thought it would be fun to spray LizardSkin on just parts of the engine bay...Over unsanded gloss.
The whole car needs to be stripped. It used to be black...Someone painted some sort of silver (maybe house paint? :stickoutt) over that...And it never even cured...Then someone did a poor 2 stage silver (not an OEM silver) over that...Leaving bubbles of paint under it, cracked filler, sand scratches. In some places the paint is so thick, the side moldings won't clip on firmly.
Anyhow...I stripped and painted the engine bay black. Cleaned up all of the plastic parts from overspray. Tidied up things...
Got the engine back in and such now. Sucks I have to do all of this work outside infront of my home garage...Not much space and no lift. Didn't have the room to take up a bay for a month in the shop.
My ISSUE now. (finally)
Fitting the intake manifold. Particularly the support brackets.
They seem to lift the manifold up by a large amount. If I torque the manifold nuts down without the supports then the bracket for the oil dipstick tube is above the nut plate by a full hole. It cannot be "pushed" into place by lifting the manifold. The manifold sits about 1/4" to 1/2" too low.
I'm curious...Because when this thing was on the road...Under acceleration I'd have a whistling, like a small intake leak. I'm thinking when the supports are installed, its lifting the lower part or the intake flange away from the head and not getting a strong enough seal.
Yes...The lower nuts on the brackets are loose. Even with the nuts on the intake flange loose it takes a hefty lift and push to get even the front support bracket in place to line up on the manifold.
Could I leave the support brackets off, to ensure a good, even torque on the flange? I've removed the butterfly for the traction control joke and the spacer on the throttle body. So there isn't quite as much weight on the end of the manifold.
I'm more concerned about getting an even seal on the mating flange between the head and manifold than having the manifold flange crack. If I ruin a manifold..I'll just do an M50 swap.
So any ideas on why the manifold isn't sitting right? Or is this pretty much standard on every one? And could I leave the brackets off for just easy of maintenance?
I don't seem to recall having issues before on other E36's like this where the manifold brackets won't line up by this far of a margin. Generally as long as you have the mating flange loose and the bottom nuts on the supports loose...It doesn't take much to get everything to line right up.