I have an L03 and am changing the intake manifold to an Edelbrock Performer TBI. The engine has 69K on it and is in good shape except for a good amount of sitting it did with the previous owner. Anyway, I got the manifold off today and of course some coolant came out, just a few big drops fell in the engine, that won't be a problem will it? The intake ports on the heads have a lot of old gasket material I am going to have to scrap off. There is also a lot of grit, dirt, flakes of rust, what-have-you, around the ports. I put a layer of paper towels over the middle of the exposed engine to catch debris. My question is, is it really bad if some debris such as that falls into the oil in the exposed engine? Also, the intake ports already have some dirt/debris in them and I am trying not to get anymore in them, but how bad is it if some gets in? Its gonna be a real challenge to get all the crap off without it falling into the ports or the engine.

 

Always change your oil and filter after swapping intakes. Put some paper towels in the intake ports to catch any gasket material. Put a paper towel in the distributor hole and front and rear oil drainback holes so no junk gets into the bottom of the motor.

Basically, try and keep as much of that crap up top as possible, so you can clean it out and see it. A vacuum cleaner with a long attachment works also. Just try not to get alot of crap into the bottom of the motor, and clean up as much as you can as best you can.