Hello, I was wondering what the H.A.M.B. Ford guys thought about which intake manifold gasket is preferred. the car runs great, oil is clean, when it is warmed up at light throttle there is white smoke out of the left tail pipe...seems to be sucking in coolant under high vacuum. 1964 Mercury Parklane, 390 Super Marauder engine, stock heads, intake manifold is an aluminum Edelbrock Streetmaster...thinking of getting one from NAPA with a steel core...made by Felpro? I thought they had their own line of gaskets. Thanks for looking. https://www.napaonline.com/en/searc...cation=true&indices=API&referer=nol-veh-conds
FelPro. At least with an aluminum intake you can handle it. I put an iron one back on a 390 in an F250 and it was a bear to get it set back on evenly without moving the gaskets. In Iron FE intake is heavy!
On most intakes that have end rail gaskets I take two long bolts cut the heads off and put one in each end of a head and use them as guides for lowering the intake on. Keeps the intake from moving forward and back keeps the rail gaskets from getting knocked off.
I'm saving that one. The last FE iron intake I was involved in installing we picked it up with the cherry picker and set it on the engine. I can't remember what gaskets though.
FelPro. Throw the cork end gaskets away. Use The Right Stuff silicon. 1/4” bead. Check out Edelbrock’s web site instructions for FE manifold install.
FelPro for sure. I've got about 60,000 miles on mine still working well, although the dist. ring started to leak a bit of oil this past summer. Easy fix.
I am going to steal the stud trick too. I like to glue the port gaskets to the heads with a couple dabs of 3M yellow weatherstrip adhesive, and set the distributor in before torquing things down. A cherry picker saves the backache.
Edelbrock recommends to use their gaskets on all their manifolds. They don't come with the end seals as they recommend a product like right stuff.
We ran Fel-Pro on my cousin's 390 in his unibody. Twice in one month as he found an aluminum intake shortly after we wrestled that bitch of a stock intake (battleships weigh less) on.
Yeah, I have a leaky one here, hoping to run across an aluminum version before I fix it, and sure as the sun rises and sets, they will be falling from the sky right after I bolt the 80 pounder back on.
I remember reading in the early 60s about Fords thin wall casting FE intake 85 lbs 144 Falcon block 83.
I have done many of the heavy dudes . I did not know studs could be used as alignment pins . I was thinking the angles prevented this . I’ll for sure look at this next time .
Can’t use studs for alignment on a Ford FE. But before you tighten the manifold down install the distributor to align the manifold with the block so you won’t have an oil leak at the manifold and distributor. Studs will work to align the manifold on a SBF.
Hey..I used these engines in several configurations for over 40 years and never had any problems with them...if I ever was building a new engine I would have the head and manifold angles re surfaced to make sure it had the correct match ... Try this..I would sit the manifold on the heads without a inlet gasket and check the angle deflection if any with feeler gauges ..can be corrected by having the manifold angle face machined ......
Felpro SFL-1246. Printoseal use a rubberized material instead of metal on mating surfaces to prevent corrosion on your aluminum intake. 429-460's use studs on each corner to ease installation.
Bingo Works on almost any intake all you need is 2 intake bolts that go into the head at the same angle. On some motors with vertical bolt you can use a bolt in each head.
One more thing I have noticed on these intakes over the years is the fact that the manifold usually does not line up perfectly with the valve cover surface at the head. It may be up or down a little, usually less than a 1/16th of an inch.
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