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Intake manifold :)

T

TheGreatGatsby

New member
Hello! I'm new to the grand prix... I bought mine yesterday really cheap its a 96 grand prix se 3.1L that i plan on using as a daily driver, it cleaned up very nice. but noticed the oil in my coolant resivoir :/ Got the oil changed today and had the car checked over asked the mechanic about the coolant, he said it was a common problem costs 400-500 for him to fix...

Basically that led me to come here cuz I know I can do the work myself I just needed a quick how to on it... I watched the video tutorial on the 3.8 so I have the background on it.

My question after watching was... Are there any difference in how to go about doing these besides the supercharger obviously? and Anything that I might run into not covered in the video so there are no surprizes?

Thank you for the help and glad to become part of your community! :)
 


intake gaskets on the 3.1 is basically the same as the 3.8 give or take a couple of things. on the 3.1 the top plenum comes off, and that will let you access the fuel rail, injectors, and lower plenum. its a pain on the 3.1 i did it on my 95 monte. i would pay the 500 and not be bothered but thats me.
 
Yeah, I think I am going to try it... I'm pretty handy with cars, and I didn't pay much for the car so if I screw up terribly I could pry scrap it and get close to what I paid for it, if not more!
 
I did mine and then when my car was in the shop they said that it was blown again. I kinda wish that I would have had a shop do it just bc then I could take it back and they would redo it. I did it less then a month ago.

Should have bought from the dealership, but there was not one around and it was an emergency fix.
 


No...why would you? It is a OHV motor...the upper intake and lower intake come out BEFORE the heads...only thing you might have to remove is the valve covers.
 
ok, my manual said to, it made no sense to me, either, I just wanted to be sure before I told my sister to order the gaskets, does anyone know if I have to remove the valve covers? I want to have those gaskets, too if I do.
 
There are bolts in them? Probably have to take off the dog bones and alternator and alt. bracket to get to the back one.
 
In order to get the intake gaskets out you have to remove the push rods which are part of the valve trane. I did my intake a couple of months ago and could not get new gaskets in with out removing the rockers and push rods. Mine is a 3.1 and I don't know if the 3.8 is different. You will take off the valve cover gaskets. I would replace them if you have high mileage. And throw plugs in while doing this, the back ones are a PITA and easier when the engine is apart. When putting the upper intake back on, be sure the cam sensor wiring goes back UNDER the upper intake, if not the sensor wiring can get signal from the plug wires and cause a cam sensor code. I'll look for a pic and post it.

samiam
 


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The green arrow points to the sensor location, the red circle shows where the wiring connection is, and is supposed to go under the upper intake. The red arrow shows where the sensor wiring is touching the plug wires, somebody did not route this one correctly. It looks like not all engines have this wiring harness located here, so this might not even apply to your engine. What year make and engine do you have? :th_confused:
 
If you can sneak them out, by all means go for it. When I did mine, I had to remove the push rods to prevent from breaking the plastic gaskets. Mine's a '99 3.1 and I don't think they're much different.

samiam
 
that is a poor design for an engine, how do you snake an intake manifold around pushrods and consider it a good idea? I like how easy my ecotec is compared to this crap. the 3.1 and 3.8 are so hard, I never thought I would miss my stupid taurus, even it was easier to work on than these engines. then you couple the 3.8 with a lumina minivan, and you have twice the suck, oh, and how does a small engine like the 3.1 take up so much space in such a big car's engine compartment. :th_laugh-pointup:
 


adamlesandrini said:
that is a poor design for an engine, how do you snake an intake manifold around pushrods and consider it a good idea? I like how easy my ecotec is compared to this crap. the 3.1 and 3.8 are so hard, I never thought I would miss my stupid taurus, even it was easier to work on than these engines. then you couple the 3.8 with a lumina minivan, and you have twice the suck, oh, and how does a small engine like the 3.1 take up so much space in such a big car's engine compartment. :th_laugh-pointup:
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why dont you go to GM and ask them.. im sure they'll answer all of those meaning less questions..

as for the post.. if it was me ill just payoff to take care of that.. you are wasting time and prolly would be wasting money if you dont get it right..
and if you pay for it and it fails.. you have some one to blame on it, warranty
 
it's not really meaningless, many manufactures have engines that take up the entire compartment, while other engines are nice, clean, and compact, leaving more room to work in a smaller compartment (an iron duke took up all the room in the compartment of my cutlas cierra, but my ecotec leaves 360 degrees to work on it in my ion). I know how to do engine work, but I don't have the pushrod tool that makes this easy, also, not being my car I don't really want to spend that much time/effort on it.
 
If yopu do this job, make sure you replace the injector O-rings. Do not reuse them. Considering its age, not sure the mileage, it is cheap insurance against not having a fire. I just did my 3800 over the weekend, with 130K on it. NAPA had the O-rings for the 3800, may be the same for a 3.1 I am not sure. Go to NAPAs site and check it out, each kit cost $2.79 each. I thought I needed one per injector but each kit came wtih 4 O-rings, I guess because the kits worked on other types of cars too. Anyway, I did not revmove the injectors from the fuel rail, which obviously used an O-ring there too, so I only needed 2 of the 4 kits.
 
adamlesandrini said:
that is a poor design for an engine, how do you snake an intake manifold around pushrods and consider it a good idea? I like how easy my ecotec is compared to this crap. the 3.1 and 3.8 are so hard, I never thought I would miss my stupid taurus, even it was easier to work on than these engines.
Click to expand...

Every engine has its pros and cons when it comes to repairs. For example, I love how much easier it is to get to the injectors on the 3800 vs. 3.1 (not to be confused with the 3100), but I hate how much harder it is to get the water pump. And room to work also has a lot to do with the size and location of other components taking up space in the engine compartment. For example, the 3800 is a fairly tight fit in the w-bodies, yet I had worlds of room to work on the 3800 in my sister's old '89 LeSabre T-Type.
 
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