[Tom Vaught]

The Pontiac 10.230 deck height crossram (according to info from Tom S years ago) was actually a short deck 9.2 intake that used spacers to get to the correct 10.230 cylinder head height. But it would be another project I would buy into Skip.

Tom V.

[mgarblik]

I have a little feedback on fitting the bathtub intake to my engine. This is NOT intended as a post to complain about ANYTHING on this intake. I did a final fitment of the lower intake yesterday. It's a beautiful casting, with lots of material available for fitment. My application is late style, Edelbrock CNC ported, D port heads. Stock block, deck cut to zero, .-002". The lower intake casting was a close fit, but not a direct bolt-on. On a 50+ year old block, with aftermarket heads, you just can't expect that or get that with ANY intake. I had a tight fit on a few bolt holes, especially the front 2 on the water crossover holes. I lightly polished the remaining 8 mounting holes with a cartridge roll, removing about .005" The front 2 holes I carefully ran a 31/64 th drill bit through removing about .015" from each hole. Then I used a cartridge roll to gently open the hole to the rear an additional .010" That gave me excellent clearance to start all the bolts. As you all know, all the bolt holes must have enough clearance to allow the manifold to pull forward and crush the rubber O-ring to the timing case, always a leak point. The only other modification I had to make was cutting a little clearance in the timing case for a nice, straight shot for the long pull-in bolt through the timing cover for the O-ring. Not sure if there was casting flash in the way on the timing case, or if the threaded hole in the intake was off a few thousanths, but you don't want any interference between the timing case slot and the bolt. Finally, for those buying the aluminum thermostat housing from Ames: It is a pretty lousy piece, IMO. It can be made to work, but mine had 2 time consuming issues to deal with. First, the mounting pad was very poorly machined and was not even close to flat. Measured on a surface plate, it had almost .030" warpage and would have leaked for sure. Spent about 1/2 hour with 280 paper and a surface plate sanding it flat. Second, inside the neck, there was a huge pile of aluminum slag blocking about 25-30% of the flow area inside. Spend a bunch of time with a die grinder and a carbide bit chopping all that crap out so coolant could flow smoothly through it. So look carefully inside if you buy one of these. Port alignment on the new intake is just great. I had to do nothing at all on any of the runners. Fantastic job guys!