GT intake manifold crack

Well the intake manifold cracked on my 98 GT right behind the alternator - I found a TSB on it and talked to some locals that knew about it too, but the dealer is looking at the VIN and saying "doesn't apply to your car". - Can anyone else who has had this problem let me know how they handled it?

Thanks, Chris

Reply to
C Miller
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Right behind the alternator as in near the t-stat housing? Mine did too...

98 GT. 96-97 vehicles were covered.. but not 98. There is a revised manifold available for a fairly low price at your Ford dealership. Gotta bite the bullet & just get it... unless you wanna take 'em to court & potentially spend more by losing.

-Mike

-- A happy kid behind the wheel of a 98 Mustang GT Cold air intake FRPP 3.73 gears Steeda Tri-Ax Shifter Full Boar turbo mufflers Hi-speed fan switch

255/60R-15 rear tires Subframe connectors

Reply to
<memset

C Miller did truly imply:

As I come in from the garage after adding coolant in the final step of changing the cracked plastic intake manifold on my 96 GT, I see someone with the same problem.

Seems Ford had an obvious problem with the injected-molded intake manifolds found on the 4.6 SOHC & DOHC engines,though the singles were more prone than the doubles. All of this was supposed to be fixed in 98, and indeed the problem(s) dramatically declined at that time. But I have heard of a few 98's using surplus 94-96 (designed) manfiolds, which I discount as false information. Your 98' car should have the PI heads, which take a different intake than the 94-96 non-PI heads which leads me to believe that you in fact do NOT have a surplus 94-96 intake but did receive a defective one all the same. In my instance, it cracked on the intake runner for #1 cylinder, leaning out that chamber and burning the valve. No compression on that one. I had available another engine, a '98 with less miles than my '96 (48K vs 74K). The machine shop(s) I went to all wanted nearly $1600 for a valve job on the aluminum heads on the '96 and I thought the cost a bit prohibitive just for the valve job as that money did nothing to fix the cause of the problem, the cracked manifold. I did look for manifolds, and with the price I received from my Ford dealer ($650), I would have had nearly $2K wrapped up in just the top end. The problem with my recalled manifold (there was indeed a recall, unbeknown to me) was the time limit of seven years which had slipped past by a scant 4 months. I was told by the dealer and by other members of this newsgroup that the manifolds were prone to crack at the 70K mile mark.

Mine cracked at 71,000.

Reply to
William

Your off by one year, the '98 used the same intake as the '96-'97. The PI heads were a change in '99 and were part of the 35 horsepower gain. The '94-'95 used the 5.0.

Reply to
WraithCobra

As WraithCobra pointed out... PI heads started in 99. Shoot, i wish they started in 98... I have a 98 ;). My Ford dealer charged me $140 for the revised intake manifold.

-Mike

-- A happy kid behind the wheel of a 98 Mustang GT Cold air intake FRPP 3.73 gears Steeda Tri-Ax Shifter Full Boar turbo mufflers Hi-speed fan switch

255/60R-15 rear tires Subframe connectors

alternator -

Reply to
<memset

Also, the DOHC doesn't use an injected molded intake. Mine's cast aluminum I believe. Car's a '97 Cobra. I've never heard of a DOHC car cracking its intake manifold.

JS

Reply to
JS

I never heard of a DOHC car cracking the manifold either... but I don't know squat ;).

-Mike

-- A happy kid behind the wheel of a 98 Mustang GT Cold air intake FRPP 3.73 gears Steeda Tri-Ax Shifter Full Boar turbo mufflers Hi-speed fan switch

255/60R-15 rear tires Subframe connectors

Reply to
<memset

ford replaced my 96 manifold TWICE for free

the second time they went with one with an aluminum crossover piece

from what i remember though, the tsb did apply only to 96/97 cars. but if your 98 cracked in the same fashion, you could have a case.

best of luck with it

Reply to
Christopher Shea

The TSB is 02-2-2, if you google for 97M91 you'll see the size of the problem. It actually affected 96 to 01's (along with a bunch of other non- mustang Fords), when they finally went with an aluminum crossover for the coolant, which is what the replacement units have now. I've seen a 7-year limit on it, which is frustrating as my car was built in 8/97, but it wasn't originally sold until 4/98 according their own computers, so the 7 year limit hasn't expired if you go by the original warranty date, but it has if you go by the manufacture date, which they seem to be doing.

Oh and somebody posted that it cost them $140 - that ain't bad. They're $299 now aftermarket with the metal improvements, dealer wants $500+ for it.

I'm not thrilled with the situation but I can't spring for a complete head/intake/etc redo, so I have to go with basic replacement for now. The part that chaps my ace is that it's a known bad part but they didn't make it a recall for 98+, just a "fix it if it comes in broke".

Chris

Reply to
C Miller

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