n2o302

Rather than bore you guys with another 3.0 headgasket job I thought I would share with you what I found in my intake while working on replacing my headgaskets and this must have been years of build up. Granted I am the second owner and at the time I purchased my 4runner with a rod knock I was busy working and had to pay somebody else to put in my new longblock never really bothered at inspecting the manifold when the mechanic had it apart just needed it running. Until it blew the headgasket recently on me and I decided to take on this headgasket job myself. With a combination of gas from the cold start and the egr along with an occasional drop of oil getting sucked in thru valve cover hose either from the tbody side or the side connected from the pvc regardless after this cleanup job I'm definitely going to reroute the vacuum or both sides and run it into a oil type catch can or an water type separater. Like I did on my mustang and a couple of the street cars I have worked on. This cleanup ended up turning into a port matching job on the tbody to the intake, then to the lower and then to the heads and the polishing up the runners from the upper to the lower. So lets begin with what I found when I first started tearing her apart one dirty lower intake along with a few pieces of carbon just falling out of the lower.
Yes look at it every runner from the upper half to the lower half looked like that and I used a fiber optic scope to get a good look at it all. Then this is where the pieces started falling out from the upper and I mean alot of little pieces.taking apart the egr valve connections and the other associated vacuum hookups revealed more carbon buildup

Looking down the intake I noticed this and I thought I had to share with you guys.

a little more bouncing the intake on the ground shaking it up a little brought out more chunks around this size look at the dime as reference.


I sprayed it down with some easy off oven cleaner and cleaned most of what you can see.

So you guys working on your head gaskets you might want to look down the intake and give it a good old once over before you bolt it back up.

Now onto the the fun part being and avid mustang racer and alot of tools available I decided while I had it apart I noticed alot of casting flash on the intake and a couple of weird indents that I thought where chunks of carbon that were completely stuck after cleaning it out is when I noticed they were actually part of the intake mold I guess from there design stages. From where the plastic bag sits in this pic right before it there is this weird looking speed bump thing which all it did over time was collect alot of carbon so I took a die grinder and started knocking it down and at the same time started cleaning up as much casting flash as I could.

I noticed it had a little 45 degree angle coming in from the tbody and was curious if that mated well the tbody checking gaskets it was definitely off even with the tbody


The throttlebody was actually smaller in size, whether they designed it for a tumble effect on the airflow or not I was always taught that the smoother your transitions are from one connection to another the quicker your airflow so I radius the intake port a little smoother along with the tbody side so now when you open the throttle plate all you see is one smooth transition.


A little gasket matching here along with smoothing out the transitions the green tape is to cover the iac hole and some other vacuum holes.


Checking on the gasket to see if they line up right and now to finish smoothing it out with some 120 grit


I started on the intake runners from the inside out with a flap wheel and a little modified tool using a 60/80/120 grit flap wheel and smoothed out the intake from that side as much as I could. I was able to clear out most of the casting flash right where it meets with lower and the same with the lower. Hope to get some pics up soon just got to download them from the camera and of course its Easter so I kind a have to do the family thing especially cause it's my nephews first Easter so a lot of family in town. I'll try to update it soon have a nice Easter to all of you yotatechers!

Tubbyfatty

Makes me wish I cleaned my intake and TB when I did my HGs....Oh well lol.

Great work!

taikowaza

What a fantastic post. Well done! Ever thought about going bigger on your TB and intake plenum? Downey (RIP) used to make one, they called it the 'big breather'. I had mine done by LCE.

mrddk92

Nice work. I polished the outside of my plenum when I did my hg's. I'm gonna put a new long block in in a few weeks and ill prob do some porting too. Might as well, I already put money into headers and cams lol.

yotafella81

Glad I saw this post, I just bought a 93 4wd with the exact same problem. now I know what I need to do to straighten it out. thanks alot

n2o302

Thanks taikowaza, if there was tbody that would work with ours I definitely would give it a try as for the plenum area I cleaned it up enough to were it is tons better than what it did look like and I just finished up the intake runners this past monday and that is a definite noticeable difference. Just curious what did Downey or LCE charge for an intake setup like that, had a local kid come in today and asked if I could do it to his runner too. I'm resizing the pics right now, I'll have it up here in a little bit.

yotaman85

this is a great post and should be a "must do" on the 3vze, it makes a big difference to gasket match the air flow on any motor..

n2o302

Well as promised here are some updates, here is a shot from the opening of the tbody straight into the plenum which I did some portmatching on pretty much a clear path.

Some before shots of the intake runners I started knocking off some of the casting flash and there were some spots that had the indent of the mold I guess when the intake was cast, I knocked off as far as I could go in with deburring stone and the rest was cleaned up with the flap wheel I wish you guys could see the difference from the inside of the runners. I took out the video scope and checked out what the flap wheels did, from what you see in the before shots and the after the the flap wheels pretty much cleaned out any excess deformities inside runner and made it smooth all the way to where it ends in the main plenum area.
BEFORE!



AFTER!
Started knocking off the excess flash.


Tried to shine some light in here for a better shot, were I was able to get it cleaned up and that is pretty much all the way into the plenum area I could have probably done a better job but I ran out of 120 grit and just recently found out that 160 is available which would have really cleaned it out smooth.


As for the lower intake pretty much the same cleanup and a definite port match with the upper as you can see from the original intake shot in the 1st post the fel pro gasket gave me enough room to cleanup the transitions from upper to lower, as for lower mating to the heads there really wasn't much to port match but the heads could sure use some cleanup. I'll probably post a better detailed pics on my next intake and head setup which I'm cleaning up for my 2door runner. I'll keep you guys updated on that setup. Enjoy!

yotaman85

any updates on this??

Booosted Supra

Im curious to see any updates also

Mud666

Do you have a pic of this modified flap wheel you used?

n2o302

Oh wow! Sorry for not responding school has been pretty much sucking up my life as far as updates its been up and running the motor idles smooth and it definitely accelerates allot better than what it used to do. Its hard to gauge how much the porting helped because at the same time I did put in some doug thorley longtubes with a hiflo magnaflow cat and muffler. I'm also on the verge of selling my rig because having 4 vehicles you don't really get a chance to enjoy them all especially being a senior on the verge of graduating just really don't have time. Plus I'm trying to finish up my 2door 4runner just one 2 many projects, so sad to say this blue one has to go!

n2o302

Mud666 I'll try to get you a shot of my modified porting tool for the intake.

TNRabbit

The inside of my plenum actually looked WORSE. It's very common as the EGR brings a lot of crap back in plus you get some oil pulled in from PCV. Fuel injected engines suffer from this as there's no fuel going in at the throttle body like there would be a carburetor engine (hence no fuel cleaning out the crud). Good reason to Seafoam periodically~

Motorheadno13

any updates on this? I was hoping to see a picture of the tool you rigged up and the lower intake finished

stefanc

OP, would you by any chance have the photos available? I'm thinking of doing this job coming up and could use your photos for guidance.
How did the Fel-Pro gaskets hold up? Any recommendations on which brand to go with?

Thanks