I'm replacing the upper intake on my car (eating coolant) anything else i should replace while i'm in there?

I'm planning to do the same thing sometime in the near future when I actually get a weekend to myself, and I plan on changing the lower intake gaskets too while I've got it all apart, and giving the throttle body a good scrub (after removing all the sensors, of course).

And if the upper intake did in fact fail, you probably want to do an oil and filter change too after you get everything else done. I've read that some people change it twice after the upper intake job, once immediately afterwards, and again a week or two later.

-b

New gaskets, some people recommend the lower intake as well, as it seems to cause the upper failure.

I checked with my local pontiac dealer and they said to leave the bottom end of the intake alone. They said that they don't see many of the lowers get replaced.

The lower is the problem. It runs too hot on the EGR stovepipe, causing the upper to break They don't replace it, they just shove an upper on that'* beefed up.

I would go on down and replace the lower intake gaskets also. They seem to be a problem area also. When I did my upper intake I replaced the gaskets and they looked really bad. On the motor I just bought (to put in my car after spinning a bearing) only has about 50,000 miles on it and the lower gaskets were already starting to get distorted on it also.

If you need any more info you can check out my post.
http://www.bonnevilleclub.com/forum/...595&highlight=

Here is what the original gaskets looked like in my 1996 at about 125,000 miles


Here is all the part numbers I used.

Dorman Upper Intake 615-180
Fel-Pro Lower Gaskets MS95809
Fuel Injector O-Rings 2-12093 (Napa Part Number)
Plastic Elbow From Lower Intake 24503423 (GM Part Number)

If you go on down to the lower gaskets be careful when pulling it out of there. There is a plastic elbow on the front of the engine (to the left of the car) that goes into the tensioner pully it will break pretty easily. The part number is above if you end up having to buy that peice.

Nice pix, i'm planning on redoing all my gaskets with my HI PO rebuild...

so how would i keep the lower from running too hot on the egr stovepipe? to prevent this from happening again

http://www.zzperformance.com sells a kit that lets you take the EGR system off and replace it with a dummy EGR sensor so the check engine light will not come on. Here is the EGR Simulator. They recommed it for off road use only. If you live in an area with emission testing you might have a problem doing this.
http://www.zzperformance.com/zzp/pro...m_blockoff.htm

Also, I have acually heard of people just undoing the EGR tube that goes to the lower intake, blocking off the hole in the lower intake and just letting the egr tube flow into the engine bay but it doesn't seem that safe to do.

thanks for your help, i ordered the o2 sensor simulators and the egr blockoff kit today. are any of the bolts torque to yield or are they reuseable?