Joe, I've seen the same thing with my home insurance, up to about $7500 a year for the house and the shop.  Used to be $2800 5 years ago.  According to my agent the insurance companies are losing their butts right now from all the weather issues, and claims arising from that.  He claims that the insurance companies working in Minnesota where I am have lost money for 3 years running, and are looking for reasons to drop home customers with any issues.  Before I could get them to insure me this year I had to spend $2200 on fireproof cabinets for storing race gas and paint, and also get six 10 pound fire extinguishers installed at various places in my shop, that have to be re-tagged each year just like a commercial property. 

I have Auto Owners for my home and shop insurance, but still have State Farm for auto.  I've been with State Farm since 1974, and never had an accident, so I think that's why the rates have stayed low.  My agent for the home insurance, who is an old friend, tells me that Auto Owners is top notch in terms of paying claims, and that State Farm sucks for that, but I don't know if that's really true since I've never had to make a claim with them.

Anyway, insurance rates are definitely through the roof, and this year I seriously considered just bailing on the homeowners insurance.  I've only had one claim in 27 years at this address, and it was only for $16K.  The wife wouldn't have it though, so we are wasting money on insurance again this year...

I wouldn't be afraid of fixing those, I've fixed way worse than that.  You could get them welded up by a cast iron welding place (see the link below), or find a way to plug them.  If the material is thick enough you can drill the holes oversize and tap them for a pipe thread and seal them up that way.  If the area is too thin for threads, you could fabricate a plate that goes over the holes and use very small screws around the outside to hold the plate in place, then seal the plate to the block with something like JB Weld.  On first use I think I would use some Moroso Ceramic Seal in the water jacket to address any potential weeping around the repair.  If the block is worth saving, go ahead with the repair.

https://www.castmetalwelding.com/

Quote from: jayb on July 03, 2024, 09:11:39 AM

Thanks for the pics, that is a typical fin left from a broken water jacket core.  I would break the rest of that out of there as best you can, and run it.  You won't have any problems.  The size of the water passage through the intake is not that critical.  In fact, with some manifolds like injector manifolds that have a braided steel line coming out of each side and into a remote thermostat housing, a #8 AN line is more than sufficient for cooling.  That is a 1/2" inside diameter line, maybe 2 feet long, to feed water through a racing-oriented engine.  Just bust that fin out of there with a punch and you should be good to go - Jay

When you say this is typical, do you mean typical of any aftermarket aluminum FE intake or any aftermarket intake in general?

My concern at this point is the quality of the rest of the manifold.  Another issue I had with it was that the distributor hole was not on center. However, I've seen that is common with the Edelbrocks which this is obviously a copy of.

No, not typical in a good casting, just typical in a defect.  The water jacket core is made of sand and is long, curved, and narrow on FEs, and it can easily be cracked or broken if handled improperly at the foundry.  If cracked, the force of 30-40 pounds of aluminum being poured rapidly into the mold may be enough to break it entirely, resulting in a fin like you have seen on your manifold.

Pressure checking would be a good idea, but the presence of porosity itself doesn't necessarily mean that you have a leaker.  To get a general idea you can seal up the thermostat housing hole and one side of the water jacket opening with duct tape, spray the area with soapy water and blow compressed air into the other water jacket opening.  Even with the minimal pressure that this provides you will see bubbles in the soapy water if there is a significant leak.  You would have to fully pressurize the water jacket passage with 30 PSI or more to find any very small leaks, but doing it the quick and dirty way will tell you if you have a junk intake.

Looking forward to the pictures.  What I suspect is that the sand core for the water jacket cracked or broke when the sand mold was assembled.  This will leave a "fin" of aluminum in the water passage after the manifold is poured, blocking the flow. If that's what the problem turns out to be, the fin is usually pretty thin, and you should be able to take a punch and break through it, and clear out the passage.  Then the manifold will be usable.

Quote from: jayb on July 01, 2024, 10:11:07 PM

  Opening up the radiator cap with an electric water pump shows a whole lot more flow at idle than a mechanical pump.

     And the relevance of this observation is what? 

Ever hear of increasing the water flow through the radiator at idle to help low speed cooling?  This is why people purchase smaller diameter water pump pulleys (such as those manufactured by March), to speed up the flow and improve cooling at idle, on hot street engines.  I used to have to do that with 500+" FEs in Mustangs; the smaller diameter water pump pulley improved temperature control.  But there is no need for that with an electric pump, which I think is a big advantage for electrics.  Not to mention the power advantage.

Feel free to argue your points Scott, but in my opinion, and my extensive experience, you are wrong about this whole topic - Jay

Nevertheless, they seem to work well in street applications.  I've had a CVR electric water pump on my daily driver 68 Mustang for years, with no problems.  Same with my Drag Week cars, where you are driving 1000 miles over 5 days, in hot summer weather, plus racing at the tracks.  Opening up the radiator cap with an electric water pump shows a whole lot more flow at idle than a mechanical pump.  Personal experience tells me I can trust an electric water pump to cool the engine properly in a street application.

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