Well for the past couple of months my 98 has been running like crap for the first 10 seconds on cold starts. I had been keeping tabs on coolant levels and such but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. My 98 was built on 4/30/98, after the supposed gasket update, so I thought I might be in the clear. I had also gotten the P0174 code at one point. at 139,000 miles I decided it couldn't hurt to change the O2 sensors. I suspected a vacuum leak, but couldn't find one. Well saturday when I was getting ready to hit the store, I decided to check the coolant and the reservoir was almost empty, with a little nasty blackish residue around the edges. The oil dipstick had just a hint of water (milky appearance) at the top. I had read many things on possible symptoms of a failing intake gasket, but I dont recall reading about a bad idle on cold starts, maybe I just missed it. I decided to dig into it, reluctantly. Really wasn't too bad a job, I would say the toughest part for me was tracking down an inch/lbs torque wrench that would read low enough. As I was pulling the upper intake off, and disconnect vacuum elbows, the one on the back just stretched like silly puddy. So I replaced the elbows on the front and back, new gaskets (the old ones really showed no sign of failure, nor did the cylinder head surface), and decided while I was at it to port match the upper and lower. There was also a very thick molasses consistency sludge on the runners with the imrc butterflys. I had to give the intake a thorough scrubbing to get rid of it. I am happy to say it starts up and runs just as smooth as can be.

 

hi, thats good new, a lot of work but well worth it. bokker.

 

so is she running better now?
also, while you had it off, i would of upgraded to a windstar style upper as they are the best flowing out of the essex motors. and IMRCs suck, ill be getting rid of them on my car when i put on the new upper intake

 

Kept the alum. intake, but did have one of the imrc actuators come unhooked in the re-assembly process, let me tell you, once it got to about 3800 rpms, it strained to rev any higher. I am curious to see how it would run without the butterflys at all, cause it wont run with them unhooked. It is running smooth, and hopefully it goes another 140,000 miles.

 

Good for you finding and fixing before you had a major Uh-Oh!

Thanks for the post - always nice to hear good stories