Rookie question - intake fitting.

[Yellow Truck]

I took a look at my engine today - I had intended to remove the intake to open up a couple of the pushrod bores since I have some interference.

Barry's book suggests a gap of .120 to .170 of an inch between the intake and the block, mine is a little bigger - I'm at .1875 (3/16ths) or a little more. Two questions -

• Is that gap too much, and if so, by how much to get down to an ideal gap (if I'm having it shaved might as well get it done right)?
• If I get it shaved enough to sit where it should, is it likely to eliminate the interference at the pushrod? If I do get it shaved I'll wait until after to retest the fit.

The first picture is of one of the pushrods, and you can see it makes contact with the intake:



Having said that, I also noted that the intake (just sitting in place on the gaskets) has a 3/16 gap to the top of the block. It is pretty symmetrical front to back and left to right, a stack of feeler gauges is snug on the left and slips in easily on the right - front gap:



Rear gap



The distributor seems symmetrical as well.



I got an image down one of the intake runners (upside down) - the gasket, head, and intake runner all seem nicely lined up as it is:

[Barry_R]

China wall clearance is pretty much non-critical as long as you have some.  The angles and other locations (port, distributor hole, mounting holes) are way more important.  You are fine.  But you will need to nibble away at the pushrod holes.  (and trim the port openings of the gasket enough to keep it from hanging into the breeze...)

[blykins]

How does everything fit without the gasket?  I usually try to mock up without a gasket first, just to see if the angles match, to see how the valve cover rails line between the head/intake, and to see how the ports line up.   Your picture down the port, is upside down, right?  How does the roof of the intake line up with the roof of the head port? 

Also when you lay your silicone down on the china walls, make sure you get some down in that little crevice on your third picture where the head gasket doesn't come all the way up to the china wall.  It will leak.....

[Drew Pojedinec]

Picture of RTV on the endwalls as Brent mentioned:




Ohh and I used the same gaskets as you, I had to trim them where the rocker oil tins come down.  If you are using them make sure to test fit the gaskets with the tins in place.  I had to cut 1/8 inch off the top of the gaskets.

[Yellow Truck]

Thanks guys. I'll take the rocker assembly off today and see how it fits without the gasket, then I'll do a little more grinding.

I don't have a way to get a good look at the intake to port match, that was just my iPhone held down as low as it would fit, and yes, it is upside down.

The gasket is a perfect fit to the port, the intake side is a little rough because I am not very skilled and was too cheap to buy the best type of grinder (the little belt ones). I opened up the intake runners to match the gasket.