I bought a set of ARP bolts and had to cut down some. This was an edelbrock intake, which I believe is not as tall as the stock manifold at the bolt holes. Even if you have a cast intake, it might be a good idea to run the bolts in with the intake removed.

 

I used 2 sets of those S3 gaskets per Barry also here recently. One was a intake swap on 390 I built a few years back and the other on my 445 with aluminum heads and intake. Neither of these seem to be having that problem and I sure hope they don't. I had originally purchased the non steel lined gasket and Barry said they will never last. I'm interested to hear what you find.

 

Got my measurements.

The original intake had clearance on the right side at 0.09" in the front corner and 0.02" in the back. The left side had 0.03" top and bottom with maybe 0.05 in the middle. The back right was 0.02". China wall gap is 0.163"

The second intake that had the sides touched up measured 0.12" top to 0.10" bottom front and 0.05" top to bottom back on the right. Left side was 0.02" top to bottom front and 0.035 top to bottom in the back. China wall was 0.134".

Right off the back I can see a 0.03" difference in the end gaps. Could that create an issue with the bolts possibly bottoming out? Then there is that larger gap on both at the front right side.

 

Maybe I ran across something a few minutes ago. I tend to be old fashioned and have always used the cork end gaskets. The first two failures used them while the third failure used silicon. This was on the intake with 0.163" end gaps.

The fourth time I went back to the cork gaskets and fortunately never got to run the engine. Today I have been scouring the web on FE intake info and checking out gaskets. It was then that I decided to measure the thickness of the cork gaskets last used. They were 0.173" thick and not very compressible. On an intake with a 0.134" gap it is obvious my intake never seated at all.

So dot the i, cross the t and used the period when it comes to these intakes. The #2 intake, with the 0.134" gap, will go back on using only silicon sealant at the ends. Still going to cross my fingers.

 

Way to stay with it. I have always used silicon with great success. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

Smokey Yumic built a nascar engine that used only pematex and had no gaskets. Great running engine, but a poor driver destroyed the car and engine.

 

The intake went back on this past Sunday. Went smoothly as far as laying down the gaskets, laying down the sealant and laying down the intake. What went not so smooth was the missing 10th intake bolt after all this time. Where the hell did it go?! Had to dig around my storage areas for another bolt, not Ford, which was the right size.

Now comes the measuring of all the pushrod lengths to see what I need for the sixteen.

 

Just my luck.

Today I opened my two bags of pushrod checkers from Howard's Cams. Put them in after bringing up #1 to TDC and they don't reach the bottom of the rocker. Am I missing the lifter when I put it in. No. Pull out my caliper to check it and it measures 8.50-9.30" and not the 8.50-9.80" listed on the bag. Oh, was I pissed off. Now they need to be returned and other ones ordered. Bottom line another week wasted before ordering new pushrods.

 

Wow, sorry to hear that. Can't offer any words that will make it better, except:

 

Sat overnight with water and and is another failure. The fifth time now. Obviously some part needs to get thrown away and replace. Leaked back at the #4 corner water port without any pressure in the system. This has probably cost me close to $500 just to deal with the intake leak with all the gaskets and engine lift rent.

Actually ordered a good head, without corrosion, as a replacement as I am assuming a head is going to be thrown away on the right side. So much for my $2500 budget which was adhered to until this problem and now swapping valves over along with another set of hardened seats.

 

Still sounds like the possibility that the bolts are bottoming out. I would try adding a thick washer to each bolt, one at a time and retorquing them. My 390 has washers but I don't remember if they are oem or I added them..

 

Too late for that since the intake has been separated from both heads and the head bolts, on the head in question, loosened already. Never saw a 360/390 with washers under the intake bolts in any of the many junkyard trucks I have looked at.

 

I'm sorry you have had such a problem and have to tear it down again. Hopefully you'll find the problem this time. I may have added the washers when I installed the aluminum manifold so the bolt heads wouldn't gouge the aluminum..

 

I don't see if you had machine work done on the block itself, but he way it looks you could have some junk in the bolt holes making the bolts bottom out before it is pulled all the way down. Hope you get it figured out.

 

Yes, the block was machined.

Today I took off the intake and the gaskets which just dropped off. The gaskets show the portion below the water ports, in the back, to have gotten wet. After cleaning the surfaces I trial fit the two intakes with no gaskets to see what was what. One intake had 0.003-0.004" clearance after tightening the bolts about 8 lbs. The other intake had 0.008" of space after the same procedure. Clearly way thinner than a 0.064" intake gasket.

Given that either intake should work fine but neither did. The gasket shows no marks anywhere else which makes me suspicious not to mention not knowing where to go from here now.