I have a 90 305 Tpi with automatic and A/C that has a bad intake gasket. The white steam emmiting from the exhaust was my first clue, then I spotted a coolant leak at the front of the engine block right beside the passenger side head.It must be the intake gasket.I was wondering how many people have changed their own intake gasket and how big of a job it was.I ws reading through my Haynes manual and it said that on some models you may have to remove some A/C hoses in order to get the intake manifold off.Is this the case with my 90 305?

 

It's probably a whole day job your first time. It's gonna involve removing the whole TPI system which can be challenging for a first timer. Write everything down and make a little sketch on a piece of paper and write down and label where everything goes. And you shouldnt have to remove ANY A/C stuff to get to the intake. Unless you have some sort of aftermarket A/C system.

 

I can give you this advice from someone who did not do it right the first 3 times. 1) remeber where all the runner bolts and intake bolts went, they are different sizes 2) taking the TPI off is a piece of cake, but if you have never done it ever before label the hoses, that also helps a lot. 3) do not over torque the runners to the manifold, i had to get special M-8 heli-coils to fix that problem and that set me way back 4) cover the distributor shaft hole and other holes in the lifter vally, that is ofcoarse unless you want to go fish out your ignition coil bolt out of your oil pan which will set you back another 40 bucks and about 5 hours of work. 5)the coolent leak you have is probibly not your intake manifold but your waterneck. If you are taking off the intake manifold smooth down the metal on the bottom of the water neck and the top of the intake manifold where they met, then when you install them make sure you use green lock-tight and put washers and RTV silicon around the top of the bolts and all around the water neck. 6) in the very unfortunate case that you are leaking coolant into your engine do yourself a favor and do not invest to much more money in it, the cylinder walls are probibly not doing so hot after be lubricated by watered down oil. 7)Do a very very good job of applying the RTV to the front and back of the block all the way up the heads. 8) the only way i was able to pry my intake manifold off the first time was to take a small flat head screw driver and slowly pop up the intire front end of the manifold, do not try to muscle it out becuase it is not going anywhere. Well i think i should stop rambling, also not sure if i can help you on the a/c part, my car never came with it. Good luck. Oh ya, take a suction gun and suck all the collant you can out of the intake manifold before you take it off also. Needless to say a job i thought would take 3 hours the first time ended up taking me 2 days.

 

I'm in the middle of one now, and I've had nothing but problems. But this car hasn't been taken care of. Read my thread under topic "Cold Start Injector" to see the problems I'm having. The car was running fine before I started the intake gasket repair job. But don't let this stop you, it's probably something stupid I've overlooked. For the most part, it's just time consuming. Make sure you've got some torx bits. T-40 for the intake runners, T-45 for the intake bolts, T-25 for the little gadget bolts, etc. And make sure they're good ones. I broke 2 T-45's trying to break loose an intake bolt. But no, I didn't have to break the A/C lines loose, not even close.

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'80 Firebird
355 c.i. Chevy (built)
8.39 E.T. (1/8 mile) Altitude Corrected - 8.27
In the process of being rebuilt and getting 7-second-ized
'87 GTA
Stock LB9 5.0 / 700R-4 / 3.42 gears
T-Tops