I never knew
 

that when you took off the intake, all of the coolant would come spilling out, although it kind of makes sense. Here's to hoping I can get it cleaned up before the neighborhood cats ingest it and/or the EPA makes a random drive by and throws me in jail.

Freeze plugs FTW.

How big? What's the point of that coolant passage anyway? The only thing I can think of is that it's to help shed heat from the coolant even more, but I'm not entirely sure.

the stock intake has this passage thru it for cooling.

I thought it was to help the carb warm up.

For cooling the coolant, you mean? Cuz it's certainly not going to cool the intake charge, even here where it's 95 every day of the summer.

Coolant runs through the intake manifold to get the engine up to temperature faster/ prevents carb icing. This helps both cold startups as well as reduces emissions as a cold engine produces more emissions.

Do you have a hose? If you dilute the area where the coolant spilled, you will reduce the risk of harm to a cat or whatnot.

I cleaned up all the coolant, through copious amounts of paper towels and a hose. Hadn't thought it'd be to help cold startups though.

The air control and check valve in the intake manifold is heated by exhaust. The coolant keeps the manifold from getting too hot. It's simple, really.

Mazdatrix sells them in the correct size.

http://www.mazdatrix.com/b1.htm

Should be just a 20mm frost plug. No need to pay to have them shipped.

A pair of 20mm plugs from Autozone will take care of it. Lots of spec-race series require you plug them so that you can get your ports checked without pissing all over the paddock.

FWIW, a GSL-SE's fuel injector bungs take a 16.4mm plug (common on Geos for some reason). Racing Beat's bogus-injector kit is a total waste!