Cascade Crew

[DyskoChris83]

ok i finally bought my friends old intake manifold and carb, they're both edelbrock performer series or whatever. It came off of a 1978 half ton pick up. villa transmissions only wants 140 to take the old one off and put the new stuff on, i dont really have the money right now to do that and was wondering if a buddy and i could put it on. Niether one fo us really has much knowledge we only basically know names of parts. how hard would it be, do i need special tools, any special procedures stuff like that. my car has the stock 305 in it nothing fancy rochester carb other then that i dont knwo much (its an 1983 z28) . i heard that i have to change distrubors i have the new one but i have no idea how to change without messing anythign up. Thanks alot for any help in advance. If anyoen nives near Tacoma UP area u can stop and take a look at the car so i can be more specific next tiem i ask for help .

[Sellmanb]

Chris, I have (unfortunately) done intake gaskets on my car 5 times (in a month's span... dont ask lol).

It is easy once you get a little confidence in what you do.

What I do...

bump the motor until it's at #1 TDC (look at the balancer and wait until the timing mark is at or around 0)

drain the coolant out (via petcock on radiator) so when you take the intake off it wont spill coolant in your block forcing you to do an oil change

disconnect all connection to the carb that isnt going directly to the intake

take off the thermostat housing (would be a good time to get a stock replacement if you havent done that ever)

remove the distributor (remove hold down bolt and pull it out)

make sure there's nothing left connecting itself to the intake manifold

there will be bolts all around the perimeter of the intake, take those out

from there the intake is "free" (note: if it's the original it may not want to just plop right off, smacking it with a rubber mallet at an angle helps to loosen the gasket)


the MOST IMPORTANT PART : cleanup! After you have the intake off you must clean the gasket off the heads, and the front and back of the block (referred to as the china wall I believe?)

Get a "gasket scraper" (I used a razor blade, but it gouged my aluminum intake a little bit, not so much my heads though)

Once every bit of gasket and gasket residue is off, make sure none fell down onto the lifters, clean up the lifter valley, there was some sludgy deposits in mine, I cleaned it up real good.

After that, put the gaskets down and mock them up, make sure you can tell they're correct. The trick with the gaskets it seems is to get some RTV-like stuff (it came in my box with the intake gaskets) and use it! You want to put it around (pretty heavy, but not gobbing) any hole (on both sides) of the gasket.

Put it under the rubber seals as well that go on the china wall, in order to keep them in place when you set down the new intake.

Once you get that all set, set down the intake, follow the torque pattern (Hayne's manual has it i believe, and so should the rest of those type of books) and torque it accordingly. I would torque one with your torque wrench, then put your wrench on it, figure out how much torque is there by feel of hand, and torque the rest down to about that tight (in the appropriate order). There are a few spots that you cannot get a torque wrench into, this is why you want to do it with your wrench and by feel.

Put the carb on (you can put the q-jet on top of this intake I do believe), the dizzy in (get it so that the rotor points at #1, this is why you bumped the motor over to #1 TDC before you started the project), and then fill up the coolant ( I do it through where the thermostat housing is supposed to go first, and then put the thermostat housing back on, and fill the rest from the radiator)


I normally let the gasket and the RTV settle/dry overnight before I try to turn it over. After you get it started, time it all back to spec and you're done!


I know if looks like a lot of work, but really it isnt. Just as long as you keep everything clean when you put the new intake on.

[DyskoChris83]

this might sound dumb but i would never of though to drain the radiator first. Thanks alot seems pretty easy. only thing im scared of if retightening the new manifold and messing with the Distributor. some reason they just make me uneasy. Thanks again, i Think im goint ot try and tackle this problem this tuesday.