Swapped out my OEM intake with a high flow Eldebrock and just realized I didn't transfer the oil splash shield from the stock one to the Eldebrock. How much trouble am I in, other than the time of tearing it all down again.

 

No big deal. There's not provisions to mount it on the bottom of the Eddy manifold anyway.

 

Thanks for putting me in a comfort zone...I didn't remember if there was provisions when I was porting the intake and exhaust ports. Then when I was cleaning up after the swap I noticed the swash plate on the OEM. Made me go back and read the papers that came with the Eldebrock again. The instructions do say to transfer the swash plate over.

 

The shield is there to keep oil splash off the bottom of the manifold. My understanding is that it's there to keep hot oil off the manifold which keeps the intake charge cooler. How much of a performance advantage by running one is hard to fathom; the manifold gets hot anyway.

I always thought it was to help keep oil from contacting the bottom of the manifold and the exhaust cross over preventing the oil from burning and turning into a big mass of carbon.

Whatever the reason, the Edelbrock 3860 manifold (TPI) that I installed over 20 years ago had provisions to accept the shield from my OEM (warped) manifold so it got swapped over.

 

Car will still run. The missing oil splash guard will not be missed at all. Will carbon build up on the bottom of intake? No. Not with out a exh heated crossover inside the intake manifold. Will it change power? Very few dynos are accurate enough to ever see that small a change. U might see a tiny slower 1/4 time - like milliseconds - on a very hot day.

Take it easy, u got the job done. Relax, take it for a drive or drink some beer - just dont do both.

BTW im jealous of your 9-bolt BW - wish i had one with 3:27 gears.

 

Thanks again for everyone's input. I pulled the splash pan off the OEM intake and was surprised at a thin layer of burnt oil inside the bottom of the pan. Inside the intake surface was a dark permanent orange color. There is 2 small holes in the pan, one on each end. Granted the engine only has 114,000 miles, but I'm thinking here...with the pan attached to the intake, wouldn't it act like a heat collector, like a convectional oven creating more heat in that enclosed area under the intake, therefore I really question the design.