hotjava66

Pulling my intake manifolds to change leaking gaskets, and thinking about updating them while it is apart. Right now engines are pretty much stock spec 502's, and the current intakes are Wieand 7513's. Guessing these were re-used from the old 454 mags when the previous owner repowered. I have heard they are not the best manifold by any means. Anyway, was thinking about changing them out, and wondering what is good, and most importantly, if there is anything that will be ok with the current stock setup, and also be useable for my long term plans to upgrade entire top end with a target hp of 600 give or take. May be a year or two before I start upgrading, since they run good now and are very low hour, don't want to hurt current performance, and don't want to buy intakes twice either.
Also, was wondering if there are any negatives to blocking the exhaust crossover passage in the intake. This is where I am having problems with leaking, and have seen that a lot of people block them off. If so, what can you use to block it off, and where can they be had. I already have the Fel-Pro gasket kits, just need blocker plates or plugs.

Turbojack

Felpro makes gaskets that come with the metal to block off the crossover. I have also used a cut down piece of roof flashing. I take bearing grease and coat the gaskets. When tighening down the intake start at middle and work your way out. Once motor warms up a little, need to go thru again and tighen up. May take a number of times going thru to get tight.

dereknkathy

bay city michigan. if you run in cold weather, maybe a downside to blocking off heat riser. otherwise, not really.

mike tkach

iTrader: (3)

if you are planning on upgrading your power to 600 hp in the future,buy singel plane manifolds with no heat risers.keep in mind that a carbed hp500 comes this way and performes well.

ezstriper

the darts that the 500HP came with work very well...