We're in the middle of doing everything but will have to finish tomorrow.

My question now is about the plenum plate. I bought the plate on ebay and got the gaskets local. Is there any advantage to using the new plate over the stock plate? All I can see is that its thicker and a magnet won't stick to it

But seriously there is nothing wrong with my stock plate.

Thoughts?

 

It's thicker for a reason. lose the stock plate, why would you want 2 plates?

 

The thicker plate probably handles the heat difference better and won't give as easy. New gaskets on the stock plate will fail when the plate fails.

 

thats what i was thinking but since i saw no physical damage to the stock plate i was just curious as sometimes stock stuff is better!

is the stock plate worth anything in the resell market? LOL!

 

Original is steel, and thin. The bolts that hold it in place are too long, so, reinstalling all the stock stuff is an assurance that you will get to do this job again in a few years.

New plate is 1/4 inch aluminum. Bit more rigid, and has the same expansion characteristics as the manifold, so, you don't have two dissimilar metals, expanding/contracting at different rates, working over the gasket...... Do it once. Do it right, and never have to worry about it again.

 

also we noticed that there was in fact oil on the inside of the plate (not much, but it was there), but we couldn't for the life of us find anything wrong with the gasket. go figure!

and the only thing that put a hamper on doing more today was tracking down a damn 1 1/4 socket for the pulley in front of the harmonic balancer

 

Some oil can also come from the pcv valve. Replace it with one from the dealer only.