[brandywine112972]

i finally found (i think) my mysterious coolant leak. it is coming the back of the intake. i can see coolant in the valley under the intake. yes, i am still running the npi intake. i have a pi intake off of a crown vic that was replaced by a coworker at work. i kept the old one. only thing wrong was the gasket was leaking, but the customer requested a new intake.
back to the story at hand. stupid a.d.d. got me off track. could it be the crossover tube that is leaking and how hard is it to replace it? should i do the pi swap, and what is the best way to do it being i have npi heads? i know there are several threads about the swap, just looking for insight from you guys as to what exactly i need to do it correctly. links to the best threads.
all help and suggestion are appreciated. thanks to all.

 

[97S281]

Yeah, I would just go ahead and swap on the pi intake considering you already have one.

 

[MustGT98allday]

might as well just swap the pi on there. all you need is new gaskets and some time to swap em.

 

[BigSmith]

Put the PI on its a fantastic mod.

You need the PI coolant nipple, Crossovertube, Gaskets and some RTV sealant. Because PI heads have different shapes for the water ports they dont line up. You will need to fill the boot shape on the NPI heads with RTV.

Thats it really. Make sure the RTV sits for 24hrs at least and you torque the intake down to spec and really it takes like 2.5 hours to do the whole swap and you will pick up at least 15rwhp!!

PI Intake Swap

Here is the whole article if you are interested.

 

[DarkAffinity]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you saying that the PI intake can be installed on NPI heads??

If I read that wrong forgive me, little buzzed atm.

 

[BAzombie]

Yes. The PI intake can be installed on NPI heads.

 

[97S281]

It's probably the most popular mod for this generation of stangs.

 

[GT o1]

I have a mint PI with aluminum crossover if you're interested

 

[GT o1]

also have bare pi heads and pi cams

 

[xandraxal]

Yep, PI intake on NPI heads is probably the most common improvement to sn95s after cai. Quite simple, takes about 45-60 minutes.

 

[brandywine112972]

also have bare pi heads and pi cams

would love to do the whole pi swap, but this my daily driver back and forth to work. the wife's van is down right now. blew the lower intake again. pontiac 3.4. i had the intake done about 60,000 miles ago, but they didn't use the updated metal gaskets with the rubber o-rings. it also dropped 2 lifters. waiting on the parts to arrive from rockauto so i can get her back on the road.

 

[allstateguy]

is there a particular recommended RTV sealant to use on the water ports in the heads? I see the one pic looked like the high-temp copper colored stuff. and after it cures, do you trim the top glop down to be nearly flush?

 

[BigSmith]

is there a particular recommended RTV sealant to use on the water ports in the heads? I see the one pic looked like the high-temp copper colored stuff. and after it cures, do you trim the top glop down to be nearly flush?

This is all just from my memory so correct me if i am wrong lol. There is a good right up by i think Casper98GT i cant seem to find it though. That would be the best place to look i think its in the 96-98 bible or something like that.

Use the red high temp RTV. And you put the gaskets on and install the intake while the RTV is still wet or else it will not seal properly. Unless you perfectly shaped it to the coolant port which would be tricky (if you are skilled at welding you can just weld a beat to shape the port to match) .. Putting it on wet lets the RTV shape itself to fill any mismatched spaces that would cause an issue.

I held my finger on an angle in the water port so that when i put the RTV up against my finger it tappered down into the port making a nice shape to fill the boot and make it square like the PI one.

If you really want to know whats what then just hold your NPI gasket up to your PI intake and you will see where it will leak.

But the power gains past 4500 is the best part

EDIT: i forgot to mention you need to tap a spot for the second coolant sensor unless you are lucky and have an aluminum crossover NPI intake. Then you can swap that crossover onto your PI intake and it makes life easier because your alternator bracket will bolt in nicely as well. I you dont you will have to tap a hole, im not sure what size the hole is because i didn't do it that way. And you may want a PI alternator bracket so it doesn't look stupid.

 

[96GTNATE]

Yeah PI intake time. High temp RTV