Seems I have developed a small leak that allows coolant into my combustion chamber.............couple of guys that run TPI's say it is an intake manifold gasket - one guy has gone through 4 sets in 4 years!

Anyone else experience this?

 

my friend had a coolant leak from his manifold, this has yet to occur to me thank goodness.

my solution is go with an aftermarket base lol. its a win win situation, you stop the leak & you get rid of the tpi's biggest restriction.

 

Two choices: intake gasket or Head gasket. Run a compression test! Also run a coolant pressure test.

Pull intake, if it is the culprit, change the gaskets.

If the intake was not the culprit, then keep stripping the motor and pull the heads(or at least the bad one)

Remember to properly torque the bolts with a Torque wrench in the correct pattern.

 

Common or notorious only for those who dont maintain the cooling system. The passages from the base into the head get corroded, and thats when they start leaking.

 

I had mine do this the first summer I put it together. I attributed this to the aluminum heads, polished intake, and antiseeze on the bolts.

What I do now is torque the bolts correctly, then put a dab of paint on one side of the heax head and on the intake surface, so that I can visually see if they moved. And it worked too ... caught one on the front doing it.

I have since ditched the stock GM bolts and used stainless. The expansion factor of aluminum parts and stainless is not a good idea, (aluminum = lots, stainless = litte (less than stock bolts) ).

Mark.