'97 Marquis 4.6l V8 Intake Manifold Blew a Hole

[maxman]

Just wondering if anyone has ever seen this before. Father-in-law experience a large bang under his hood. Car started, but would only run with foot on the gas. He drove it like that for 15 miles to have someone check it out but they did not know what was wrong. No power assist to the brakes. Then he called me. I notice chunks of plastic sitting below the manifold on top of the engine block. He drove it 20 miles to my house. I removed intake manifold and there was a large opening blew into the plenum on the bottom no less than 6 inches long by 3 inches wide. ADVANCE Auto found me a new one an hour away. For $275, and a bunch of hours, the car was running fine that evening.

1. Is this common?
2. The aftermarket DOORMAN manifold had some aluminum casted sections, unlike the stock manifold. It came complete with integral gaskets, thermostat, and revise alternator bracket stamped China.
3. The thermostat housing did not stack up correctly with the spacers provided with the kit. I had to make some spacers from snowmobile parts.

[way2old]

The intakes are known to crack. Usually they crack at the coolant crossover in the front and leaks coolant. I haven't seen one blow the bottom out of one yet.

[bobss396]

There is another topic on this page, look for the one about the overheating Mercury that stranded someone for 4 hours.

Your car is probably too old for the class action suit that made good on all the 4.6L intake manifolds, but give it a shot anyway.

Bob

[sheebeehuh]

The manifold failure is a very common problem. However, like way2old said, I've never heard of one blowing out from the bottom.

There's some really good manifold info here...

http://www.autoclinix.com/Manifold.htm

You might check it out to see if they mention an exploding manifold.