What would you do ?

[Simmo68]

G'day all,

I went Mafless as the guy doing the tune had a great rep. Massive gain.
I have a small story to tell here,please be patient.
I read some place in a magazine that the Intake bolts have a tendency to work themselves loose over time and its required to nip them up ( I now know that this is Major BS ),anyway I did this and within a short period of time my motor was running like crap!
I visited a guy in Darwin and enquired about tune after getting full Zorst done,I told him about the intake manifold issue,he laughed as you would expect and told me to take it off,replace gaskets and bring it to him afterwards. I took it too him and he worked his magic,what a tremendous difference. ( He did say that it was hard to get this thing making power though for some reason)! Any way,as it is now Mafless I modified the intake up to 90mm the whole way to the throttle body (even better since). Much more power now!
However,I was mucking around with this XR8 ute and my car like backfired,when I investigated I saw bits of Intake gasket material had gotten around the Intake and between the heads and were visible,Fark I said scratching my head!
I took Intake manifold off and could see it was just not sealing,replaced gaskets ( This time I made sure that the Engine was stone cold before doing this job ) I did not realise the importance of doing this most crucial thing. Torqued it all down according to specs and now I notice it is just a much better machine.. i am yet to go for a good run but it just seems better somehow!!! Jsm did flash another tune over the top of initial tune as he did recommend to come back after a few weeks of driving which improved things way more.
My major question here is that since it is all settled down now should I have the tune looked at or just leave it alone?

 

[Munz]

What gaskets were used to begin with? LS engines use a rubber type of gasket for the intake, and would be very hard and very strange to have broken gasket material unless they weren't fitted and torqued properly.

Although glad it is all sorted and yes I would go back and have it looked at 1 last time, just as long as it doesn't cost anymore

 

[Simmo68]

Hey Munz,

I used genuine but this is the clincher,I didnt wait until the motor cooled down,I was simply too busy and doing multiple tasks, ( I should have known us men just cant multitask LOL )... Any way it was a silly/expensive mistake.....
Its all good now,I will do a run or two on a Dyno and see if it needs touching up.
The reason it backfired was the pipe that goes from throttle body to valley cover plate was perished,I had to source a part that was similar but the ID is smaller,new part now waiting in Darwin ready for pickup.

Thanks for the reply