i got this weird thing where if i leave my car for a few hours (say over night) i get a small puddle of coolent sitting just near the intake manifold...

is this a bad thing? and how would i go about fixing it?

-Cheers

 

Stock intake has two o-rings on the manifold. This exact same thing happened on my car when those went. Replace them and you will be good to go. Hope that helps.

 

yea, its the coolant o rings, and you'll have to change the intake manifold gakset while your at it, cause that will fall apart. Mine was weird, if the engine was cold it would literally puddle under the car, but once it warmed up I guess the o rings expanded or something and it wouldn't leak nearly as bad. I was able to drive it all winter like that and just recently fixed it.

 

Orings nah get yourself two 20 or 22mm freeze plugs. I think it was 22mm from you local auto parts store. get a new gasket. You will never have to worry about it again and you can take your intake off anytime you want and not worry about losing coolant all the time.

 

Do those freeze plugs go in the engine or the intake? From what you say it sounds like the engine correct?
Grant

 

I'm just waiting for someone to say it'll mess up driveability since coolant will no longer be circulating.

 

Yeah they go into the engine. the easiest way I found to get them in is to find a deep socket that fits inside the cup side of the freeze plug and carefull tap it in.



They wont, cause it dont.....

 

Then whats the purpose of the coolant circulating in the intake manifold then?

 

I have an aftermarket manifold on mine it has no coolant passage and as far as I know all aftermarket manifolds have no coolant passages in them.

So as for why its there my only guess is when your car reaches a 100,000 miles or so you can take it to the dealer to have the o-ring and intake gasket replaced. Gives tham a chance to tell you your flux capacitor is outa wack and need to fix that too. Then it will last another 100.000 mile and do it again. Mazda dealer mechanics need the easy jobs like this to keep them employed.

Besides the plugs cost like .75 each and the orings cost a little over 2.00 each. Then the oring goes bad again.

 

The reason there is coolant going thru the intake is to assist with SMOG, better MPG and also to help with cold weather driving (no icing).


John

 

Rhino is dead on with the explanation of why the 12a cars route coolant through the intake manifold. The SE's (like mine) also route collant to the intake system, but this is used to actuate the 'secondary throttles' which come on in cold conditions to help enrichen the mixture as a choke would do (EFI cars have electronic choke controls).

With coolant flowing through the intake manifold, this helps to heat up the intake air system so that it will atomize fuel better (temperature as a catalyst to help the gasoline aerate and break down into small particles when it flows into the engine). As this hot coolant circulates, it goes in and out of the intake manifold through those passages that others are suggesting that you block off.

These will help your car to run better and warm up faster during cold weather conditions, but aside from that, heating your intake air is pretty poor from a performance standpoint. In turbocharged engines, the cooler you can get the intake airstream the better - that's why they use intercoolers after the heat-generating turbo.

Replacing your rubber O-rings with freeze plugs is probably not a bad idea, and it ensures that you won't have to make the modification again when the rubber rots out. I'd just make sure that they're sealed and maybe put some gasket seal on them when installing them. The new manifold gasket should seal over the top.

Does that answer your question?

 

yeah thats help heaps guys.. thanks...

now come the fun part of taking off the manifold!

-Cheers

 

Taking off the manifold is a lot easier than taking off the carb.

 

agreed, that nut on the back left side sucks ***. The manifold comes right off with no problems, mine did at least.

 

so you can take off the manifold without taking off the carbi?

 

according to teh haynes manual you can, but it would be awkward as hell, i took it all seperatly

 

I was searching the forum for this thread because when I took the mani off a car I bought they had used U.S. quarters to block the coolant passages!

hah hah hah

I think I will keep them blocked, but use the freeze-plug approach. Heck, I can use the $.50 to help pay for the freeze-plugs.

 

Would it be possible to drill into an intake and tap it to accept pipe fittings... Then you can block it and hook up coolant hoses in the winter with a bypass valve for the summer...

Just an idea.

Or perhaps run A/C refrigerant through the intake's coolant passages.

 

I think you could simply JB Weld the intake manifold coolant passages shut. Just grind/file/sand down afterwards to make sure the plane on the mani is still flat..