Hi there,

I recently bought a 1988 Trans Am with the LB9 5.0 TPI. I bought the car with most of the top end torn apart from the previous owner rebuilding the cylinder heads. I got got to the point last night where I was installing the passenger side TPI runner onto the aftermarket Edelbrock intake. I had no problems. Everything bolted up correctly and the runners were all flush to the lower intake.

Then, when I was installing the driver's side, that's where I ran into an issue. After trying to install the runner to the lower intake without success, I discovered that I may have either a wrong part, or a defective part. Where the lower intake bolts to the runner ports, seems to not sit flush and even? It almost appears as if the runners are either bent, or maybe I have the wrong combination of parts. I have the 9th injector slot in the TPI runner along with the piece off of the fuel rail so I thought that should be correct.

Are the lower base intakes from Edelbrock all the same or are they different from the pre and post 89? Is my intake runner bent? I have some pictures that may help answer some questions.

Here is the Edelbrock base. I couldn't seem to find any part number on it other than the part that says Hi-Flow Edelbrock.



Here are the runner. I tried to take one that shows how it appears bent, or for the later model TPI Base?





Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

 

Anyone?

 

The bad news is that it does look like there is a defect in that part.
The good news is that you can probably still make that one work. As it is not cast there will be a ton of flex.
On the bench - I would start all the bolts and then slowly tighten them all. Should be able to pull everything into place. Once you have a process for tightening it, I would put it into the car. Otherwise, see if you can find a runner.

 

I am definitely going to give that a try tonight. Thanks for the heads up!

 

Thanks for the tip! I was able to bend it back into shape and get the top end of my motor bolted back together.