to smoke test my IM installation after 5 days of CCing the heads. I've got a moderate vac leak somewhere and can only pull 10InHg of vacuum. Should be closer to 18InHg. Makes for hard starting, VERY lopey/shakey idle and hard to get away from a dead stop. However, once away and above 2k RPM's the car runs like a rocket! Manifold switchover now kicks in HARD and gives a nice "pressed-into-the-seat" feel.

Gonna break my heart to find out I have to R&R the manifold again or worse, find one of the IM outlet flanges on a complete P&P'd IM was bent, warped, distorted or otherwise unable to give a mated seal to the matching cylinder head flanges.

But maybe I'll get lucky tho I've been over, around and through this thing for the last 2 days and I'm pretty much convinced the IM will inevitably have to come off again. Now I'm on my way out the door to go see if I can pinpoint exactly where the leak is by pumping smoke thru the brake booster vac line nipple on the front of the IM and see where smoke starts to emerge from. I got an initial "bank 1 lean" code on startup which leads me to believe it'll likely be passenger side IM-to-cylinder head leak but I've put 60 miles on it since then and no more codes tho it's still symptomatic as hell that there's a leak somewhere.

Seems once again I have to embrace the "I does em nice cuz I does em twice" philosophy... Grrrr

fully ported/polished/gasket-matched and CC'd just like IM #1 but never mounted/installed until now. It's just been sitting around pre-assembled with new gasket between upper/lower halves torqued to specification with all it's runners, throttle body flange, ISV bores and vacuum inlets duct-taped over to keep it clean inside and to protect flange sealing surfaces from scratches etc.

I see him one a week or so

using "their" tester?

Your SnapOn driver probably won't have one on the truck but boy, he's gonna be thrilled ;-)<ul><li><a href="http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item.asp?store=snapon-store&amp;item_ID=77361&amp;group_ID=17833">SnapOn Smoke Tester</a></li></ul>

hummm thinking of a ghetto rig with a bike pump and a cigar...thats more in my price range.

to see where your vac leak is in the dark

and permanent damage to one's friends.

White Rabbit:

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Recall Alice
When she was just small

When men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving slow
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's off with her head!
Remember what the dormouse said;
"FEED YOUR HEAD... feed your head"

<img src="http://thumbs2.modthesims2.com/img/5/0/2/5/2/MTS2_Lethe_s_669091_caterpillar-2.jpg"><ul><li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgbntWU7pG8">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgbntWU7pG8</a</li></ul>