Alright so this is just a recap of how the gasket change went and the problems I faced doing it. I am writing this post for people who do the LIM gaskets themselves in the future so they can get an idea of what to look out for.

I started off after I got of work at midnight Monday and worked on the car for 3 hours. every thing was carefully removed out of the way. When I got to the throttle body I un bolted it with ease and found it covered in build up on the back side. I never sprayed any cleaner in there in fear of ruining the MAF. It was cleaned and shined up to look like new. upper intake came off and it was pretty nasty too but the gasket was intact. After this I has stopped and put some PB on some bolts for the brackets over the valve covers since I was changing those gaskets too.

Next day I had a few friends come over to help with the rest of the removal cleaning and putting it all back together. when we removed the LIM I was not surprised to find the gasket was breached in a couple of places on both sides causing a slow loss of coolant. We took a full can of carb and throttle body cleaner and shined the LIM up real good and made sure all the matting surfaces we clean and flat. gaskets and runners installed with a little rtv to make a proper lasting seal and we were on our way to putting it all back together. We followed the proper pattern and torque with both the upper and lower intake. Also it took us a good 30 min to pry out each end of both coolant elbos. glad I got aluminum ones to replace them. made tool out of a nine inch nail to be able to get behind the pieces and pull them out.

now when we got to installing the upper intake the was a mistake made that wasnt discovered until two days after. I bought a new upper intake from zzp along with the insert that says its good for 30whp in the top end and 8 in the bottom. new gaskets were applied and installed. mount for the presser sensor and mount for the the vacuum line were installed. I also too the nuts and the pressure sensor off the old intake and installed them on the new one. thats where a mistake was made. the project was continued and everything went smoothly. the coolant was flushed and green coolant added with a new thermostat. time came to start the car. And not surprising to me it didnt start. I new it wasnt going to because this kinda stuff always happens. we found the the belt was slightly off and leaning on a wire to the A/C compressor causing the fuel pump and starter to do nothing along with some missing lights on the dash. problem fixed and it started right up. first thing I noticed was the sound it made. a hissing from the intake. I thought it was the insert or something. after the warm up and nothing was found to leak we took it for a test drive. then came a loud screaming sound. like a car was burning out. I thought it to be the belt. new belt installed and no change. so I thought a bad bearing noise from the pulley so I ignored it for now. the car also made a long sucking sound after the car was off.

the next day I started the car and it was poring white smoke and it smelled like burning coolant. I was getting really depressed in fear that I messed up. I started to take the spark plugs out one by one to inspect them. 3 were covered in oil and the other three looked like normal use. after wards I started the car again and the problem was gone. I figured it fixed itself. after a day I took the car to work thinking I would have to wait to fix the other problems. no performance seemed to be added. felt nearly the same. I came home and wanted to find the source of the sound. so I walked to the front of the car and found the sound was coming from the engine and not the pulley. I tried to take off the oil cap but it was vacuumed on. I new something was really wrong. I googled it and called my friend over and the internet told me to investigate the pcv valve. well it seemed fine and an o-ring was there then my friend came and we took a look at the old intake. when we popped off the old sensor mount we found the spring and pcv itself. I was in a rush and to excited to notice that I had forgot to transfer the whole assembly over. with that installed the car ran normal. still no performance gained by looking at the numbers. 0-60 seemed slightly slower. Feels like I lost a lot of low end but gained a lot of top end power. so I am going to change the spark plugs and but 91 octane back in since thats what the computer is tuned for and see if I cant get that promised performance from the intake insert. If not I fear I may have damaged the engine because of the pcv valve mistake. Sorry for the long story but I figured it may be helpful in the future when others do the LIM gaskets them selves and kinda give them an idea of what to look out for. Ill update after I do the spark plugs.

 

was it a hv2 or 3 insert? and let us know what happens, some people on here notice gains but this is the first i hear that there is no differemce

 

its the hv3. new spark plugs are in and 91 back in the tank just in case it is knock. but the 0-60 is still slower. my time before I did the job was a flat 8 seconds almost every time. now the best I can do is around 8.8 seconds. I think I lost a lot of low end. the top end does feel more powerful. taking it from second to third at WOT it feels nice. not sure though.

 

Keep in mind, the HV3 is meant to work best with ER Rockers and the HV Throttle Body (it's part of a three mod formula to get the most out of it).

But it's supposed to improve top end power. I have read folks on the Bonneville forum tend to agree that it does drop a touch on the low end with that mod.

Did you ever find the source of the smoke and coolant smell? Was the smoke coming from the exhaust or under the hood? This could be playing a roll in your problems (even if you are no longer seeing the smoke, depending what is causing it does not mean it has gone away, just may not be enough volume to notice).

 

So what's up with the hv2?

 

If I could make a constructive suggestion- if you added a couple of returns to break up the main ideas in that huge paragraph, it would be a lot easier for people to read.

 

The smoke was oil not coolant. my mind was just assuming the worst because of the job I just did. I had some misfiring going on because of some bad plug wires in addition to the pcv not being installed and me not know this driving it 30 miles to work and back caused some major blow by getting oil into 3 of the cylinders.

Now that the problem has been corrected I did an oil change and added some compression restore. this seems to have helped and im now back to around stock time.

I guess I needed to do some more research. I didnt know I needed some supporting mods to go with it, thank you Maniac.

Also Ill edit the first post Bumpin. Hopefully I did what you were talking about.

 

That looks great- much easier to read!