Ported and Polished? UIM
 

I just got this off of here and got it and was a little disapointed, but looking for some answers.

http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/p...h_IMG_1375.jpg
http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/p...h_IMG_1376.jpg
http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/p...h_IMG_1377.jpg
http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/p...h_IMG_1378.jpg
http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/p...h_IMG_1379.jpg
http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/p...h_IMG_1385.jpg
http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/p...h_IMG_1386.jpg

Okay, the first thing that appears to me is that the polishing looks nice.

Next, the throttle body looks stock, but on the intake manifold, it doesn't look ported, but just machined. then i noticed that there are cracks everywhere.

As you can see by one picture it's cracked all the way through.

Now what i want to know is how bad will this affect my car, do you think it will leak? does it look ported to you? i was told it's gasket matched, which is ported to a sense but not normal porting.

Lastly, how do you think i could go about fixing this and what would i have to do?

oh wow that sux sorry to see you get ripped off like that. did the person you got from even told you about the cracks? i don't know if it's fixable or not. go to the grand pee forums dot net and pm Reptile.

no, i wasn't told at all, i was just told it was polished and gasket matched, doesnt even look gasket matched

The crack on the middle port is the only one i could see affecting anything, only if it leaks air from there. The other cracks shouldnt make much of a difference. Ill agree those should have been pictured before it was sent though.

You cant tell if its gasket matched until you hold it up to the gasket.

i have had ported and polished intake and also the heads. i have never got them back looking like that it looks like heat break and damage has ocered.a true porting on a intake it should have a little evedence there was water or some thing present on doing the port or present of a cleaner drops present where you could have wiped off. a true port there is always some thing used to help keep the metal cool to help disperse the heat when you do a port it creates a hotter heat then. the engine gets do to metal being shaved off and the metal gets moldeble also tends to crack when trying to rush

i dont think the cracks are from the porting, they look like theyre from over-torquing, but i donno if there's anything i can do to fix it

true it looks frome one or the other the person put it on and did the damage or hapened when doing the polish

theres 5 with cracks all the way through, i'm just hoping that they wont leak, i dont think there will be enough air pressure to make it worse of blow out but i'm not sure

No one touched inside those ports with anything. There are still casting marks inside. If they did anything they may have ground the flanges down some maybe that opened the ports up some. I would have contacted the seller immediately after receiving that intake because of the cracks. Who wants to pay for something that is broken? I wouldnt. Who did you get that from? If they didnt disclose the cracks, I would ask for my money back and if they dont give it the best you can do is make sure everyone knows that the seller is a crook.

well i dont want to say who it is yet, but if you look in the classifieds it's pretty obvious. i have contacted him already, just waiting for a response..

****y to hear that, was the TB gasket matched?, thats the only area i can't see, the intake runners deffiniatly wern't like mat said still has the cast marks in the runners, the cracks well thats no good only thing i could think of is if it's aluminum like i think is find some one who does aluminum welding and have them welded up but then you polish will need to be redone in those area's

i think thats what it is, the throttle body is gasket matched, but it was never specified, just like i was never told that there were cracks, i really dont want to pay return shipping, i think if anything i will send it to ben at wot-tech to have it ported and then see what he can do to seal up the cracks

i would most def demand atleast part of your money back, thats messed up u pay through pay pal? you may be able tp bring them into it if there is issues, don't forget about doing the LIM porting one half only gives as much as the unported half will take,

it just sucks that you didn't get what you paid good $$ for! just hope it wasn't that much!...:(

i was planning on getting the LIM done after this one but it appears that i'm set back a few $10's and an UIM from where i planned on being.

It wasn't terrible, but it was money that could have went to a real ported manifold

I'm in the process of porting my own LIM. Nothing too crazy, read no gasket matching, just smoothing and polishing the runners. Have you thought of getting an HV3 for you UIM? Gasket matching the LIM without doing the same to the heads, I have read, doesn't really improves air flow.

not to knock it more but seems kinds dull to me too
left corroded horridiably, right what i got it to
http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q...1275069082.jpg

I hope you can get it taken care of quickly and without too much trouble

i was going to do ported uim, lim, throttle body, and headers with high flow cat. but this will set me back a bit

i highly doubt it was shined before it was sent to me, considering it doesnt seem as if it was even ported lol, it does have a nice shine to it tho

Any Update?

IMO that piece looks like scrap to me- I can't see that being worth the time to get it correctly fixed.

If the seller didn't tell you about the cracks up front- I'd definitely push to get your money back- the thing isn't even usable as is. I can't imagine the person wanting you to ship it back anyways- I mean its not like anyone is going to buy a severely messed up intake just for the exterior polish job.

Unless you're boosted, you're not going to have pressure in the intake manifold- its going to be in a vacuum while the engine is running. Doesn't really matter either way- its still a net pressure differential from the inside of the intake to the outside.

Also, in my opinion- if they are cracked through from the outside of the intake all the way through to the inside (like in imagine 1379- the closeup of the port)- they will leak. The other thing you must consider- it may look like its tightly pressed together now- but then you must consider what is going to happen when you torque the bolts down, and then once it goes through numerous heat cycles. I'd bet the leakage will just get worse.

Also, with those pics of the cracks near the bolt holes (like 1385)- it looks like you have less than 1/2 of the original flange thickness still intact. What's to say these things aren't going to bow and move when torqued down and heated- and possibly allow a leak through at the gasket- even with a perfectly good gasket.

As far as fixing it- they make aluminum 2 part weld putty- but it would be hard to get it into the cracks. You'd probably have to V cut them so you could assure the putty made contact with as much of the damaged area as possible. Even then, I don't think I'd be real crazy about doing this since its right next to the bolt holes- I know people have done this kinda thing before, but IMO its kindof a ghetto fix for it.

IMO, the best bet for close to the original strength and quality would be to take a die grinder, grind out the cracks- all the way down to clean metal. Then take a TIG welder, and the appropriate filler rods, and build the metal back up just above the surrounding surface. Then take out the die grinder again, and smooth it back flush with the surrounding surface. Last would be putting the intake in a milling machine to true up the outlet surfaces from the heat distortion caused by the welding.

The only thing that worries me about that would be the one that you show that goes all the way into the port. That would mean grinding a chunk out of the side of the port- and having to rebuild, and reshape that port with filler weld. Definitely wouldn't be impossible- but definitely time consuming.

However, between the labor or a person prepping and TIG'ing it, and the machining costs to get the flanges flat again- I'd bet you have more in the part than its worth. It looks to me like a stock 3400 upper intake- I can't imagine those cost that much used. I know polishing is a little steep- but IIRC I only paid like $200-250 for a whole M90 supercharger to be mirror polished. I can't imagine this costing more than $100 to mirror polish a stock one (plus shipping obviously)- there aren't that many small areas to get into, its mostly one big open area. Since this one isn't really ported much anyways- you could always just use a dremel tool and port it yourself, or send it off to get ported professionally.