Intake Manifold Swap Questions...UPDATE 7/27

[Ponch ®]

Ponch,

Have you tried sitting the manifold on top of the engine w/o the end gaskets in place ? I'm curious as to how close it is to lineing up ?

Maybe give that a try....and see if you can start the bolts on both sides of the intake. It's possible the rubber end gaskets are raising the intake up and causing the alignment issues. 

This is assuming that the end gaskets are installed, of course....

Ron

yeah, i did and it  still wouldnt fit. I did notice that one of the runners creates a large 'bump' on the bottom of the manifold. It's possible that maybe if the heads were milled, that bump is what isnt letting it sit right.

Im gonna try to mess with it again soon. Unfortunately the car and engine are over at my mom's house and during the week by the time i get off work and try to get over there its usually too late to start any sort of work on it.

[Brock Samson]

i had the LD4B on my 318 too,.. sold that entire drivetrain for $300 just to get it outta the way... 

[Ponch ®]

UPDATE:

This morning I went to a highly recommended, very reputable machine shop to ask about this:

I reckon I could take the two intakes (the one that came off the engine and the eddy) to a machine shop and maybe they can figure it out by comparing them or something (if that is possible)

They said that there really isn't a way of doing that, other than trying measure and guesstimate by how much the intake and head boltholes are misaligned. However, the guy I spoke to (the owner of the shop) was telling me that this is a common problem and that usually the easiest fix is to take a file or drill and elongate the holes on the intake just enough to line up (once the intake has been properly set down on the motor). I shouldnt have any vacuum leak problems as long as the port runners aren't molested and I use gasgacinch on the gaskets.

What say you folks...good idea?