I plan on porting my kegger while I have it out. I purchased the Hughes plenum repair kit. My center divider has a large bulge on side of it. Is it for EGR? my truck is a 96 5.9L with no EGR. I purchased the truck a little over 2 years. If it for EGR, I am thinking it was replaced before. Not sure, but my main question is, Can I cut out the center divider and plug the threaded hole without ruining the intake manifold? Thanks for the help.

This is the bulge I am referring to.

open hole. its threaded. maybe put a npt plug.

 

My 96 had the same thing, and yes, it is indeed for EGR, which you don't have. My guess is, they had manifolds left over from the 95 model year trucks, which DID have EGR, and just used them up. You can remove the whole center divider without trouble. I bought a slightly newer manifold, which didn't have it. Just make sure that you don't leave a hole in the manifold to outside air.

 

HeyYou, Thanks for the reply

 

Welcome.

 

Check out the VRP plates, my give you more benefit, I would guess the divider would have some affect on air flow turbulence, in a good or bad way i could not say. I'm not a science expert on it

Are you stating non egr in takes don't have that divider? because I though they all had the divider

 

It went in stages, 95 had the divider with EGR, 96 and up (except some of the earlier ones) had the divider, but, no EGR, later years didn't have the divider at all. I removed it from the manifold I put on my 96, and shortened the runners up a bit. Peak torque was a bit higher, but, so was peak power..... and there was more of it, along with better throttle response. Some of that may have simply been a product of not having that massive vacuum leak any more though.

 

Have a look at the Utawesome Kegger mod.

 

I always thought the kegger runners were designed for more torque, wouldn't shortening them lower it? or do you mean its higher in the RPM band?

Thats the VRP plates I was talking about, never got mine installed, my mod guy didn't want to tackle it and I don't have a tig. My pan plate is welded on now so no going back on this intake.

 

Shortening the runners moves the entire power band up a couple hundred RPM. (the more you remove, the higher it goes....) Stock, the motor produces good torque, but, runs out of breath shortly north of 4K RPM. Granted, for most 'truck' uses, you don't see that range very often, if at all.....You do get a bit more horsepower lower down though..... simply because the engine is breathing better. You don't really "Lose" anything, just where you find it changes.

I gotta say though, on my 96, with north of 180K miles..... the single BIGGEST performance change for me, was replacing the stock, worn out timing set, for a good double roller set. I was amazed at how much of a different that made...... Of course, my truck hadn't been treated very well by previous owners...... But, I got it cheap, spent a couple hundred bucks fixing its issue, and drove it for another 7 years.....

 

My scribe marks. I used the markings from the previous intake gasket (new gasket matches) to create my scribe pattern.