Tex Smith book says that head dowel pins are a different size for '51-'55and '56-'57[could have the years wrong,going from memory]The heads could be from a different year?Just a thought.
Update Intake isn't warped and the head surface is straight : When I place the intake on the heads with no bolts or gaskets, it sits perfect. No gaps - no wobble. Problem...the bolt holes don't line up. I placed the intake on with 4 bolts in it. When you place the intake evenly and as far down as it will sit, there's a gap of .1" all the way around (used a stack of feeler gauges and then measured the stack with my caliper). Picture with something in the gap so you can see what I see. It's an even gap too...not like it's bigger at the top of the ports than the bottom. I'll be checking with another intake over the weekend ( big thanks to disorderlysaint). Do I have any options as far as this intake goes or too soon to tell?
My first thought would be to drill out the manifold bolt holes a bit oversize so the the bolt holes provide sufficient clearance to install the bolts without having to raise the manifold for bolt alignment. That shouldn't cause any problems even if a few of the bolt holes in the heads are thru to water ports as long as you use thread sealant. Which would be the case anyway even if this misalignment didn't exist. Alternatively, you could try doubling up on gaskets to fill the gap. If it were mine, I would 'sleep on it' for a few days to see if any greater clarity of the problem strruck me, but would probably drill out the holes for clearance as the easiest solution. There may be some mismatch of the ports in this situation, but for all but ultimate performance it probably doesn't matter much. Ray
Does sound like something has been milled, maybe multiple gaskets or the adaptor for using 331/354 heads on a 392 will fill the gap.
If the fit is only wrong with the bolts installed,then I agree with this.With the intake laying on the heads with gaskets,all bolts have to thread in with no struggle.I think you're gonna have to make that happen and so long as all the ports match up,it's good to go.
A couple more thoughts. Since the heads and intake are flat and match and the issue occurs with bolts in place, then, on which side of the 'hole' do the bolts bind? If the contact is on the top of the hole (toward the valve cover) then that would indicate that the manifold (or intake rail) has been cut to match a cut deck (block or head). If the bolt contacts the bottom of the hole (toward the center of the engine) then that would indicate that just the deck (either head or block, perhaps both) has been cut. Perhaps the original intake had been cut to match but a stock manifold will sit 'high'. On these Chrysler heads, it is easy to cut the deck side, but it is much more difficult for some shops to cut the intake rail so the matching intake manifold may have been cut. Without any bolts in place, and with the manifold sitting on the gasket, can you see (into the hole) well enough to see what misalignment exists? Will doubling the gaskets allow the bolts to clear? Very intriguing, keep us posted! .
Looking down into the bolt holes of the manifold, the cylinder head bolt hole is a bit offset to the top (closer to the valve covers). That's with it sitting as shown in the picture above. With 2 gaskets it might clear...but both sets have different size exhaust cross-over ports, so I'll have to go get another set to match up to the port size I have (I have the smaller cross-over ports). Once I get the extra gasket, I would think that with some of the permatex spray you mention, that would help "glue" the gaskets together so they would be one piece.
For what it is worth the problem you are decribing was what I ran into when I had my block decked and heads trued up on my 392. The bolts were a bear to start without playing with each one but I got all to start with making sure they were not cross threaded. My intake was new and never cut. If your heads or block were machined you also need to have adjustable rockers or pushrods because your stock push rods will be too long.
What's the better option here? Drill out the bolt holes in the manifold or Double up the gaskets Do I need to worry about any special drilling technique for opening up the bolt holes in a cast iron manifold?
What's the better option here? Drill out the bolt holes in the manifold or Double up the gaskets Do I need to worry about any special drilling technique for opening up the bolt holes in a cast iron manifold?
It's really six of one and a half dozen of the other. I'd do the double gaskets myself, and tighten the manifold down in four or five stages. All bolts in finger tight, then start doing a criss-cross tightening pattern. Glue the gaskets together with something that won't harden. I also think you'd be OK to overlay the two different gaskets you have, one small and one large on each side. It looks like the sealing rings are close enough in size that they'll overlap each other a bit, so you'll have a some extra crush at the sealing rings, which is good. Drilling them out would take some time, plus you really don't want to open the bolt holes up too much because then you narrow the sealing area between the bolt hole and adjacent intake port and/or coolant port. I don't know how to do the math, but if the manifold is sitting up .1 inch from the head with the bolts in, I think you'd have to open the bolt holes up quite a ways to get it where you need it to be. A really ambitious and **** person with a lathe would turn the shank of the bolts down to 5/16, leaving enough of the 3/8 thread protruding beyond the bottom of the intake to thread into the head securely. Nah, I'm jacking with you. Nobody would do that. Would they?
If you cut down the bolts you will have to start a new thread on how to remove broken bolts in the head. I would drill the intake. (you are talking about 1/16" closer to a port) Then the bolts will not bind. Using two mis-smatched intake gaskets is asking for a leak or the slippage of the coolant sealing ring (seen it). AND the bolts will still be in a bind and not torque properly or break (see first sentence).
Not all gaskets have the metal ring at the water port so a sandwich should work as long as the thickness is correct. In fact, the opening isn't required unless you want to attach some plumbing and even then you only need a hole as big as the threaded bung you plan to install so you could make your own gaskets out of some fat industrial material. Not sure that drilling the holes is a good idea, as mentioned there would likely be an issue of thin material next to the ports. If a guy had a milling machine then you could run an end mill down the side of the hole but that will be time consuming. .
Just a possibility here. Maybe find some rolled threaded bolts instead of cut threaded ones. A rolled thread bolt will have a smaller shank than a cut threaded one. I have seen them before but it has been years. Good luck on this, and that is a fine looking Hemi.
PLEASE DO NOT pull carb cleaner back into a shop vac.You will not have to worry about the intake not fitting due the resulting explosion and fire you will create.After 20 years in the fire restoration service I've experienced the result,as in you could die!
Thanks for the tips. Since I don't have a lathe, I won't be taking down the bolts. Not thrilled with widening the holes, so I'm going to try the double gasket. Ordered another set to match the ones I have that I didn't use...so I'll give a report on Tuesday night (nobody seems to keep old hemi gaskets in stock...go figure). Still going to try to connect with the Saint to see how his manifolds fit...just to make sure I have a manifold issue and not a cylinder head issue (I'm curious)
I'm concerned about the primary alignment here, the ports. Very imPORTant to have matched ports at the manifold/head parting line, or a swirl will most definitely occur. (add it up: 8 of them, in fact.) Tale a long caliper and measure the distance between the banks of the head ports and the manifold ports, considering gasket thickness (es, if two) I am anxious to hear the values, as they will indicate whether a stacked pair of gaskets will restore alignment. Ports are the concern, bolts are the symptom.
Need to research gasket thickness. Sounds like you need 2 .050 gaskets(1 per side) or perhaps one .100 gasket on one side to get things liked up. Not sure how thick the HH intake adaptors are, but @ 95$, the gaskets seem the way to go.
You said the intake wasnt the one that came off the engine. I would double check that it will even fit your engine, the little i know about early hemis is that some will fit some wont the one I have wont but an expensive one might fred has one he thinks should and bob sold the one I needed last week
Id pull the heads off and check the dowell pins, if the motor was bored out they needed to remove the dowells to do that and they could have been left out. theres no reasone if the motors all the same stuff you started with that it shouldnt fit, unless the heads arent on right. I personally wouldnt double up the intake gaskets, id be worried about intake leaks. If you do take the heads off i wouldnt re use the head gaskets either. my 2 cents JEFF
Don't have the original intake...seller of the engine didn't keep it since it wasnt a 4 barrel one. Ted came by with another intake and I have the same issue. Maybe the heads were milled in a past life. I might have a picture of the rowel pins that were in the engine when it was taken apart.
Just drill the intake bolt holes,,,,it is easy and works great. No problem at all. This is an easy fix,,,reference the drawing there,,,it will work. If the intake sits fine without gaskets,,it is really close to being right,,,and whos to say that the bolt hole pattern was not drilled perfect to start with. I would use a dab of sealer around the gaskets where water is gonna flow by. Tommy
If the block or heads were milled the intake would sit high, not low. I can't imagine someone would need to mill the intake face of the heads & that's the only way the intake would sit low w/o the intake being miiled. Of course 2 intakes not fitting is odd.
Maybe try this. Set the intake on with the gaskets.....but no bolts. Take a light and look down through the intake bolt holes to the threads in the heads. Do the threaded holes appear to be too close toward the center of the engine....or too far apart? I will ask again. Has the block been decked and/or the heads been surfaced? On an early hemi, .0207 needs to be taken from the intake flange for every .010 taken from the head deck surface. With a face angle of 25*, it doesnt take much to throw things off.
George I don't mean to be argumentative, but I think that's incorrect. If you cut the head - 2 things are gonna happen. First the intake bolts will move closer to the deck - making them closer to one another (side for side) than when you started. The next thing that happens is that the intake surfaces themselves move farther apart - resulting in the intake sitting lower than before. By cutting the intake surface as TR Waters suggest addresses this because when you cut off the material from the sealing surface of the intake the bolt holes openings (from side to side on head side) are getting closer - thus making up for them getting closer when you resurface the head or deck the block. I'm not too sure I explained this very well, but if you think of the intake as a simple "V" the bolt openings themselves become an inverted "V" or a /\ - as you shorten this (by cutting off the bottom) the bolts (where they exit the manifold) become closer to one another. Same thing with the heads. Those intake bolts are getting closer to one another as you remove material. The question now is - HOW much to remove?? Dan shows that .100 is a reasonable amount of gap- if the heads were cut once or twice in their lifetime and the block cut once or twice - using TR Waters number of .0207 adds up pretty quick. So if at a minimum the heads and deck each had .010 removed - TR Waters number suggest .0414" needs to be removed from the intake surfaces - with that amount would the bolts now line up (meaning we don't yet have a relationship in numbers for the .0207 and how much it "moves" the bolt hole over. I suppose we could calculate that out....
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