My car seems to take forever to warm up. I always have to let it stay in fast idle for a long time in the morning before it will idle properly. I talked to my mechanic about it and he said that the heat crossover in the intake manifold might be clogged up with carbon deposits and stuff. It's an edelbrock manifold but it's been on the car since October of 1987(previous owner). Does this sound like it could be the cause of my car's cold-natureness?
Is this an easy project to clean out the heat crossover?

Thanks

 

honestly, I've never heard of a heat crossover.

It sounds similar to what happens with the EFE valve though. Since you have headers you probably got rid of the EFE valve though, so that shouldnt be a concern.

You might want to check some of the simpler things first.


Is your thermostat stuck open? If it is then this will slow down the heating up process a lot.

Fan stuck on all the time?



Check those first.

 

I think he is talking about the heat riser that crosses the middle of the intake. I have a 91 with the LO3 and it uses coolant as a heat riser instead of exhaust. Older chevy's had ports coming from the 2 middle exhaust valves that lead into a small chamber under the intake plane. Yours may use the exhaust but I'm not for sure.

I would do as sellmanb says, check the simple stuff first. A stuck thermostat can cause many cooling woes.

 

Nope, its your choke.

 

which eldlbrock manifold is it ? alot dont have that passage its blocked off. i had that problem and it was thermostat stuck open.

 

What carb is it? I'm still betting choke!

 

I intentionally plugged my exhaust crossover in the manifold I put on my 350 in the fall. It got down to -56* a few times here and I never had any warm-up problems. All it does is warm up the intake, so the carb warms up. You don't need it. My engine actually works better with it plugged than it did before. A plugged up exhaust crossover will not cause warm up problems. Hasn't on any of the cars I know of with that plugged.

 

I have a set of vortecs and they removed the crossover completely. Just shows that it is not nescessary. If that was even the case it would take a rediculous amount of carbon to plug that passage.

You can buy gaskets that intensionally block off the crossover.

 

I just filled mine with hi-temp silicone, and cut a tin plate to cover each hole, and stuck it in the silicone.. works great.

 

The choke is working fine(Holley 600 w/e-choke). I just replaced the thermostat. The Edelbrock manifold does have the heat riser.