Thread: Dirty LIM gasket change

Sorry to hear you are in that situation! Unfortunately, I've been there too. I used to work as a professional detailer so don't believe those who say this will ruin things. Just be careful and if you follow these instructions carefully, you won't have any issues. About the only thing I've found works on that stuff is first disconnect the negative battery terminal, next use plastic bags and rubber bands to cover any sensitive electronic components (cruise control, ecm, ebcm, alternator, battery, cone air filter, etc.), then spraying the gel type heavy engine degreaser EVERYWHERE and letting it sit for 10-15 minutes. Then either rent a pressure washer (with a fairly wide tip of course so you don't cause damage), or go to your local pressurized car wash, and spray the living crap out of it making sure to try to avoid spraying any electronic components. This gets most of the big grime out of the way so you can see the rest. Now I tend to repeat as necessary, and I'll bring out a quality long handled parts cleaner brush (kind that looks like a giant paint brush). Once you're happy, remove the plastic and take a wet rag and lightly wipe the areas you protected to get everything clean. Then, either use a blower or wait for things to dry, and if you'd like, you can apply a tire shine to most surfaces, making sure to spray onto your rag and not directly onto the headers unless you just really like smoke and fire! Now reconnect your battery and enjoy the cleanest engine in town!

lol didn't read at first that you had already taken the intake apart. My advice to avoid issue is to pull the plugs, fuel pump relay, icm connector, and injectors (if you haven't already), then plug the injector holes, intake holes, etc with paper towels. If you have coolant or liquid, wet-vac or somehow clean that up first. Next use brake clean or your choice of solvent (use degreaser if you have a fancy painted manifold) and spray everything down. vacuum if necessary. remove the spark plug paper towels, use a rag and solvent to clean the injector ports and any gasket surfaces (I prefer scotch brite pads with solvent to razor blades). Re-assemble as necessary. If you removed the lower intake, take it to the car wash with engine degreaser and spray the crap out of it and re-install. Once everything is back together, I'd repeat the cleaning process above. And done! Hope this helps!

Sorry! forgot to add that you want to do the spark plug thing cause you're going to crank your engine over to "blow" the crap out the spark plug holes. You might want to spray some carb cleaner down the intake and spark plug at the same time just to be safe. Then all my above applies!

Congrats! I know that's not a fun job, especially with the lower intake removed. If you have trouble bleeding the coolant, my trick is the lisle no spill funnel. You just fill it half- way, loosen bleeder screws till they weep, close, start the car with heat on max, let it come up to temp, repeat bleeder procedure, shut down, let it cool, repeat bleeder procedure, remove funnel and top off overflow. Done!

Haha yeah, that funnel is one of my favorite tools of all time. Oh, and just a warning on the cats, walker is the preferred oem by many here because it works and doesn't throw any codes. Don't go with a high flow cat unless you want to deal with tuning the codes out.

Originally Posted by jeepers

Walker eh? I was just about to order the ZZP Downpipe w/ Cat and U-Bend delete. I see that they mention that it _may_ throw a code but they make it sound like a low probability or infrequent event. No?

I can't speak personally for zzp's. hopefully someone will be able to comment on that. (*cough* Billboost) if it does throw a code, you can keep clearing it, but every 25-50 miles or so it'll go off again. If you have emissions in your state, it'll fail. On some gps, you can just remove the rear o2 and use zzp's dummy o2, but I can't remember if it was 00 or 02 that they changed things and the only way to delete the rear o2 is to leave it in and actually pay to have the code tune out. On the newer ones if you remove and tune out it'll run rich. If you have the older ones, then order the cat and get the dummy o2 while you're at it.

I run a 3" catted DP from ZZP with the rear 02 sensor installed. Has never thrown a code. I also used to have an O2 sim. installed and it worked just fine. This is on my 00 GP. Of course I also live in a county that does not require emissions so not sure if it would pass. Never tried.