Went to go pickup my new HGK plugs/wires last week and found myself having a hard time breathing in the car. I had left the heater on the day before and while warming it up it was obviously sucking air from the engine bay inside. After a minute of concern I popped the hood and was greeted with a surprising amount of smoke. It was quite obvious the exhaust manifold was cooking oil. This was frustrating but intriguing at the same time as I've never had this engine apart. I tried tightening everything but it didn't help. Seemed apparent the gasket was the culprit. Was surprised I couldn't get at one of the manifold bolts without removing the power steering pump. Also gave me a chance to put some nice clean brass plugs in place of the hideous smog rail (was taped off anyway). The manifold gasket was black and tired looking on the firewall end. New gasket seems to have solved it. The kit came with a new donut gasket for the down pipe but it was considerably thicker than the crusty original, creating a gap and a fun ticking sound when accelerating. I had to take about a third of it off and really crank it tight to get a proper seal. Overall a decent $15 experience I'm glad happened in my driveway.
Yep, that's duct tape. It's the thought that counts!
After that side track, I received my new plugs and wires. Ordered them off clubplug.ca which had the best canadian shipped price. I couldn't find a inline 6 set for less than $90 locally so ordering online was the only option. I live on a small island so common part prices are sometimes inflated. Wires are HGK part number 51416 and NGK V-Power plugs were part number GR4 2635. Wires and 2 boxes of 4 (8 total) plugs ran me $56.29 with free shipping. Unfortunately they only came in blue with orange boots.
I have the new HEI distributor, red 12ga wire (didn't have 10ga in stock and 12 seems acceptable), firewall plug connector, plugs/wires and a new timing light that I hope works. I'm going to start the points to HEI swap in about 4 hours. The plugs are pre-gapped at .040" but I've read going to .045" or even .050" is better for HEI. Any thoughts? I've read some say the fuel line will need to be completely replaced to go around the bigger dist cap and others say it can be "massaged" to fit. I hope it doesn't fit as I'd like to be forced to invest in a braided 6AN line with filter. I've always had in line filters on previous cars and not having one on this car kills me inside. God knows what kind of debris is getting pushed thru there.
For fun, I think I'll make a video of the whole process. I've found several write ups with great info but a video would be great. As always, I'll post here when done.
Ian
p.s. I figured out how to make these images click-able for zooming purposes. I'll try to remember to do this from now on.
