I don't mind doing the heads/head gaskets and UIM/LIM. Does anyone want to place a friendly bet as to whether the bottom end is messed up? Roughly what percentage of these intake failures results in lower end damage?

I don't know about the percentage, but there have been incidents...

If it was driven for a long time with the LIM gaskets messed up, things could have gotten pretty bad down there. Best thing to do is hope for the best and start tearing into it. If you find water down there and in the cylinders, get it out of there ASAP and get some oil in there to try and minimize any further damage.

Yeah, that sounds like a plan. I wish I knew what happened when it quit running, and how long it was driven in this state, but the kid driving it was probably doing very good to even find the gas cap so he could add fuel. He wasn't much help with my other questions. I've got a Dillon-modified intake on its way, because I'll need that no matter how this goes. At $800 purchase price, even if I end up putting a $500 used engine in there, I'm way ahead of the game.

Have you ordered the new style OEM replacement LIM gaskets yet? You'll want to do that at the same time for sure.

And, you're right... The price sure seems right for a project car.

No, I haven't ordered anything else yet. I'll search out the part numbers. I was planning on using the GM LIM gaskets, Felpro the rest of the way. That is subject to change.

Since I'll be removing both heads, shouldn't I just get the entire head gasket set, like FelPro HS9917PT3? For about $200, that will include just about everything I'll need. I want the job to last, but the chances of me owning the car another 5 years are highly remote. Therefore, I'd rather go a little cheaper for a decent repair than more expensive for the "perfect" repair.

I got the upper and lower intakes off. When I removed the upper, the top of the lower had a nice oil/coolant/water/fuel concoction in it. I don't think there was much coolant in the cooling system; I bet it was 80-90% water. I barely saw any traces of coolant. Would that help my chances of the lower bearings being OK? Anyway, so far so good. Funny, my 11/96 dated Delphi intake has no degradation around the EGR port! I picked at it, and nothing came crumbling off. When we did the UIM on my Mom'* '98, the EGR port was all rotting out, and if you touched it, it fell apart. The LIM gaskets didn't look so good, but I didn't get to really inspect them, as it had gotten dark. Everyone say a little prayer for my 3800, that I may get the heads and valves done, replace all the gaskets, and it will be whole again. More to follow!

I got the heads off today. The head gaskets both had areas between the cylinders that were suspect, but I'm not sure that they were "blown". The valves on the affected cylinders look pretty bad. The two cylinders that had decent compression didn't have much, if any coolant in them. The other 4 cylinders had a lot of coolant in them. I'm going to get the heads to a machine shop to have them worked. All in all, not a bad job. The engine was complete as of 5pm yesterday. I got the intake off by about 6:30. Today, I started at about 10am, and had both heads off by 2pm. I wasn't working my fastest possible, but at a steady pace.

Thanks for the updates so far. What you found seems typical for the LIM gasket failure. How did those gaskets look in the light? Also, keep us up to date as you progress.

It does sound like you are getting your known problems resolved, though. That'* good.

Well, there were suspect spots in the gaskets between the "offending" cylinders that had coolant in them. I've been lucky enough in my time dealing with engines not to have ever blown a head gasket, so I can't say conclusively that is was the head gaskets causing my erratic compression numbers. Nonetheless, the heads are going to the machine shop. A recommended shop is going to charge $175/pair to do a valve job, new freeze plugs, resurface the heads, and check for cracks. Does that sounds about right? Been a long time since I've had the services of a machine shop. My Dillon UIM should be here about Thursday, so I might be in business this weekend!

If the head gasket was blown between 2 cylinders, those two cylinders would have the same compression.