Intake vacuum leak
#1
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Working on a car for a friend of mine. Just put together a forged LS3 with AFR Mongoose LS3 heads. Due to hood clearance issues, he decided to go with a rod modded LS3 intake. I just got the car running and it seems to have a pretty good vacuum leak. Car won't idle under 1500rpm. When I installed the intake, it took a little work to get it to sit down on the heads. The aluminum sleeves for the bolts weren't fitting into the provisions on the heads very well. I'm assuming this might have put the intake into sort of a bind and likely causing the leak.
Has anyone modified those sleeves on the intake side? Cut them flush? Any downsides to that? Or should I try to open the provisions on the head side to get it to sit better?
Has anyone modified those sleeves on the intake side? Cut them flush? Any downsides to that? Or should I try to open the provisions on the head side to get it to sit better?
![](https://paceperformance.com/images/M132020975.jpg)
#2
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Jonathon, were the heads milled down considerably for compression reasons?
#3
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#5
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ARP head bolts. I will look to see if there are witness marks on the intake in that area. The valley cover plate has the OEM bolts.
#6
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#7
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Those numbers will make intake alignment tougher for sure, but maybe not the entire problem…the Oem valley plate is thick, and along with those valley cover bolts…if he’s trying to run heat masking material like in the pic, it adds to the issue. Could be 2 or 3 things fighting you here.
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#8
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Those numbers will make intake alignment tougher for sure, but maybe not the entire problem…the Oem valley plate is thick, and along with those valley cover bolts…if he’s trying to run heat masking material like in the pic, it adds to the issue. Could be 2 or 3 things fighting you here.
I'll look over everything again and see if I missed anything. Is there a gasket that I can use along with the o-rings or even by itself that might help the alignment?