Sunday afternoon I finally got my intake manifold and throttle body installed. It went suprisingly smoothly. This being the first major project that I've taken on myself, there was a bit of a learning curve, but the two main goals of the day were accmoplished:
1) new parts were put in
2) car still works after install

I snatched a lot of good and somewhat creative pictures. I'll post them after I get the rolls developed and find a place to put them online...hopefully sometime this week.

The trottle body was a piece of cake to take out. Disconnect the accelerator cables from their looms, the TPS harness, intake hose (I took off the MAF and elbow, just to get them out of the way), fast-idle sensor, and the four bolts holding it onto the IM. Once it's loose, but not taken off, pull the throttle cables from their connexions on the pulleys. Pull it off the IM and disconnect the coolant lines, and it's free!

Disconnecting all the parts that attach to the IM manifold was obviously more involved, but it wasn't too hard. Having the replacement IM available to use as a reference for where the bolts were and what needed to disconnect was a VERY useful tool. As I took stuff off, I could place it onto the new IM and keep track of all the hoses and bolts and stuff. The fuel rail was a little tricky to disconnect from the fuel lines...the car had sat for about an hour before I got to the point of disconnecting those, so it was more or less depressurized. Definitely have a few shop towels positioned below the connexion to catch the gas that comes out. I had disconnected the pressure regulator from it's supports, but I left the assembly all connected to itself. Once the injectors were worked out of the IM, I stood the rail up on end on the passenger side, and tied it up and out of the way. There are a lot of supports for harness looms associaetd with the bolts holding on the IM...in retrospect, it probably would have been a good idea to label them as they came off, so I'd remember where they went. A little creative guesswork was used on install to put them all back.
The bolts connecting the IM to the head were stiff, but not too bad. The lower row of five are kinda tricky to get to...but if you have all the ducting from the air filter box to the manifold off, then there's enough room for you to get your arm in and beneath the IM from the driver's side with a short-handled ratchet and get them off. I had good luck in the ones I dropped; they all fell clean through, and didn't get stuck anywhere in the engine bay.
The bolts connecting the IM to the manifold brace are a BYTCH! The top ones aren't hard to get to, but the combination of factory torquing and 40K of heat and stress and dirt had them pretty damn snug. You have to take out the top ones, obviously, but you also need to loosen the bottom ones, from under the car. They're up on the engine, on either side of the exhaust flex pipe. I tried to get a pic...hopefully it came out. Just loosening those about 1/2", to get some play in the manifold brace was enough to be able to work it out. I tried for some GREAT pictures into the head once I had that off...again, crossing my fingers. VERY interesting to see down in there.
Installation was much easier, since I already knew where everything was. I got lucky when taking the old IM off, and the gasket remained stuck in one piece to the head. I had forgotten to pick up a replacement gasket until after I had gotten to that point, so I feel VERY fortunate that that puppy didn't break. Mounting the intake back onto the head was a simple reversion of the removal process. Mount up to the head, tighten the lower end of the brace, connect the IM to the upper end of the brace, and tighten them all down. Work the injectors back in...a little WD40 on the O-rings made that go smoothly...hook up the related connections and wire harnesses. Hook up the idle bypass log, and the looms for the throttle cables. Hook in the cables to the pulleys on the throttle body and put that on. Hook it up to your air intake and start it up!

Or so I thought, at least.

My car wouldn't turn over. The battery tested fine, and the next hour was spent going over every possible wire harness and connexion we had touched during the process. Finally, Summer's dad, who had been helping through the whole process, was feeling around from the underside of the car, and had found a connexion to the starter that had come loose while we were working. Good thing, because we were really running out of ideas, and also starting to lose daylight. Once that harness was plugged in, everything worked great! Well, worked great in the sense that it was running. It ran like shyt at first, until a)the ECU readjusted to the new parts, and b)the throttle cables were fine-tuned. After the initial "lugging" of the engine as the fuel pressure returned to the runner, idle settled down around 1500rpm. We brought it down to the low side of ~800.
After this, I figured I was on a roll, and so I gutted out all the stock air filter stuff, and shoved a K&N onto the end of the flex pipe. Is it a CAI? Not by a long shot...but I figure it's an improvement over the stock box restrictions. I'm going to order a DynaBatt to free up some room, and after that I'll build a much more convincing CAI, but for the time being it had already gotten dark, and I figured I had pushed my engine intake karma as far as it would go. I think this air filter is overkill...I don't remember the part number off the top of my head, but it has a 3" inlet, is about seven inches long, and at the base is about 5 1/2" diameter. It was the smallest K&N cone I could find at three different auto stores... I figure no harm can come from an oversized filter.

A few suprises that I came across, and then I'll end this oversized post.
Suprise 1) Lack of pressure securing the injectors into the IM. I was suprised to see that two simple bolts held all four into their holes. I would have figured that there would need to be more than just the friction of an O-ring to keep those in place. I guess maybe they aren't going through as much stress as I imagine, since they aren't actually in the cylinders?
Suprise 2) Gunk in my old IM and head. It's not carbonization or anything...it's kinda thick and dark. Summer's dad thought it might be coming from misfires, but I haven't noticed any while driving... Peering into the head, there was a definite line where the gunk was absent, I think because the valves are clearing it as they move. There was a small amount of this crap on my injectors...they got a good wipedown with some carb cleaner since they were handy. Any thoughts as to what this stuff might be, and what it might mean?
Suprise 3) That my last minute cone installation worked... A good seal is being made around the ribbed flexible duct that connects the stock filter box to the MAF...it's working like a charm, and the difference that this has made in intake sound is QUITE noticeable.

End result: there is a definite increase in power from the engine. I don't know how much...butt-dyno says probably under 10, but it's not just a placebo effect...the engine IS doing better. I was able to hold my own much better against the sea of huge pick-up trucks and SUVs that I come across on my daily morning commute. The power increase everywhere in the rpm range. All in all...GOOD STUFF!

 

Thanks for the greatly detailed process. I will be doing these same mods here within a few weeks. So it's a noticable HP increase thru entire RPM range? In your eyes, was it worth the upgrades? Also, do you have a CAT back/exhaust?

 

Great stuff man! I can't wait to see the pics. How long did the whole switch out take?

 

I should be getting mine today or tomorrow, looks like a early morning saturday project. We'll need to race once I get mine in! See how the 1st gen does against the 2nd gen? smile.gif

 

No problem! Hope some of what I says actually helps and doesn't just confuse you more. I would say that yes, there was a noticeable improvement after doing all three mods (cone filter, Barney TB set at 60mm, and bored IM).
To me, it was definitely worth the money and time...these kinds of mods have a "percentage increase" effect on your HP gain...6% of 140 HP may not seem like a whole lot, but 6% of 300HP is more substantial. 6% is just an arbitrary number...I don't have a number on what kind of gain I got from these mods.
Finally, no I'm still using stock header / cat / exhaust. I'm happy with it for the time being...and I probably won't replace until after I turbocharge, when I'll really NEED it.

 

I started taking stuff out around noon, and I was done with everything around 7:00. This was with two people, one of which has quite a bit of amateur engine mechanical experience. Keep in mind that this also includes the hour spent farting around trying to find out why the starter wouldn't do it's thang.

 

Bah. You've got a standard...you'd win anyway. rolleyes.gif
Let me know when you get your goods, and when you plan on putting them in. My weekends are intermittenly booked, but if you want (and I've got the chance to) help, I'll do so.

 

Actualy I'm an autotragic too (awwww group hug!). The only thing not stock right now is I ripped out the Air box and screwed in a huge ass APC filter, I love the way my car sounds now! Your help would be awesome on the IM install, I sure could use it. Seems like a fairly long process, but since we both have exp with remove/install of the TB and you got exp with the IM, my bet is we could cut a third of the time off.

 

The crap in your TB, and IM was dried oil sludge/sludge. the IM sucks oil in via the PVC valve. The Intake sucks oil in through the crankcase breather hose. It is nothing that causes any harm. The reason the valves are clean is that they get sprayed with gas...so that washes the oil away!

 

Random, should this be cleaned at reqular intervals? Can it be cleaned?