Replacing intake gaskets (DIY TUTORIAL)

[MrDrumngun]

I am sure everybody knows that you must first remove the air box, breather hoses, AIT sensor plug, throttle body cables at throttle body and ignition coil first. This guide will focus on removing the intake manifold itself. In order to do this without rotating the engine one must remove the air scoops on both sides of the engine. T27 screws hole both sides on.
First you are going to remove the T27 Torx screw that holds the ignition coil bracket to the intake manifold. You will need a 1/4" ratchet and a T27 bit as shown in order to fit the space allowed.

Then remove the throttle body cables from the throttle body. I forget the size of the Allen bolt wrench necessary.

Next you must remove the Allen bolts on the right side of the intake. You can use ANY 1/4" Allen wrench without modification although all tutorials I have seen, state that you must use a special Allen wrench. You do not.


In order to
put a sufficient amount of torque on the wrench you can either use a long Allen wrench or place a deep well socket on the end of a 3/8" extension and slide it onto the 1/4" Allen wrench to use as a "cheater pipe/breaker pipe"


Next is the most frustrating part. Loosening the 1/2" bolts that hold the left side of the manifold on. You need not remove these bolts. Simply loosen them. Upon placing new gaskets you will need to loosen them even more than was necessary to take the manifold off. In order to do this you will need a half moon wrench. The only other route would be a stubby wrench but you are not going to get a lot of torque to tighten the bolts back up. It can be done with a regular or stubby wrench but your frustrations will be through the roof. The half moon makes it way easier because otherwise you will only get 3 degrees of rotation at a time due to the finite working space.

Here is what my gaskets looked like upon removal.




Next clean your mating surfaces.


and replace gaskets.

Reverse steps in order to install.

[SWATcltch]

In case anyone is wondering the Allen wrench for the throttle body cables is a 3mm.

[TPEHAK]

Hello. I have 2009 Buell XB12Scg with 16500 miles.

Today I started to replace the intake manifold gaskets. Here is what I found in the intake manifold. Thick layer of dirt on the walls and the valves! Is this something I should care about or just ignore it? Is it normal?

I'm not sure if you can even recognize the valves under those dirt. I believe these valves totally lost their flow characteristics. I touched the dirt by fingers and it feels hard as rock. I think the dirt does not let the valves close the holes firmly and fire goes back in the intake manifold trough the gaps and because of this the intake manifold and the butterfly valve are full of dirt.

[rchuff]

And that is why I run fuel treatment every other tank or 2. Might be overkill but worth it I think. Looks like burnt sugar. Did you do a breather reroute?

[TPEHAK]

There is no breather reroute, all is stock. I closed the valves, sprayed brake cleaner inside the chambers, covered the holes by a rag and let it soak overnight, but at the morning I notices it does not help to remove or loosen the dirt. Also I tried to loosen the dirt by a plastic brush with no big success. Tonight I'm going to buy a Sea-Foam engine cleaner and intake valve cleaner and try to apply them.

[rchuff]

You should think of doing a breather reroute so you are not sucking the crankcase crap down in your throttle body.

[TPEHAK]

You should think of doing a breather reroute so you are not sucking the crankcase crap down in your throttle body.

Breather reroute is bad idea. First of all ECM is adjusted to correct fuel mixture according intake air temperature sensor. When you replace the hoses from the intake chamber you significantly change temperature in the chamber and it causes wrong temperature reading because ECM assumes that there are additional temperature due to hoses from the engine, wrong fuel mixture causes power loss and fuel economy loss. Another issue is when you remove hoses there in no oil vapor in the chamber anymore and it causes than the air filter gets dry and engine sucks dust and dirt from the air. Plus with no oil vapor the valves and the top area of piston work with no lubrication anymore. I would not recommend you to reroute the hoses.

[user_deleted]

Breather reroute is bad idea. First of all ECM is adjusted to correct fuel mixture according intake air temperature sensor. When you replace the hoses from the intake chamber you significantly change temperature in the chamber and it causes wrong temperature reading because ECM assumes that there are additional temperature due to hoses from the engine, wrong fuel mixture causes power loss and fuel economy loss. Another issue is when you remove hoses there in no oil vapor in the chamber anymore and it causes than the air filter gets dry and engine sucks dust and dirt from the air. Plus with no oil vapor the valves and the top area of piston work with no lubrication anymore. I would not recommend you to reroute the hoses.

absolutely positively 100% incorrect info on all counts. but then again i really don't know all that much about these bikes so disregard my opinion.

[TPEHAK]

I tried to spray CRC valve cleaner in the chamber and pour Sea Foam. Nothing helps. It looks like those products work only when engine are working. I'm going to assemble the intake back and try Sea Foam according the instruction. Brake cleaner gives the best result for manual cleaning by the way.

[BuellyBagger]

That escalated quickly! The only down fall to a breather reroute is finding another place to dump you're crank case vomit! Granted it should be tiny new born spit up, not me on a hard tequila night!lol. Just in case any newbs didn't catch John's sarcasm. ....