302 Intake Manifold

Is the intake manifold for a 302 marine engine any different than one for a car engine? Could you replace the original with one from say summit racing or O'Reilly Autoparts?

Here is a peak at what we are working with. Know its covered. Will provide more pics soon...

No, I do not believe there's any differences. Maybe some extra tapped holes but they can be plugged.

What's the problem with the original manifold? Is something going on with the "engine rebuilder" that couldn't rebuild the correct rotation???

BTW, I suggest posting questions like this to your existing threads. It will help all the members get a good idea of what you are going through.

Got it Pete I will in the future. Sorry about that. Long story short the machine shop took their time and did the research on what they needed to be changed to give the engine the proper rotation. It took a while as my last post on this subject was several weeks ago which has been frustrating but they are confident that they got it right now. I picked the engine up today and it should be ready to go in the boat by mid next week. Today's question arose from a comment that the machine shop made when I picked up the engine and a few other miscellaneous parts that my mechanic sent over there to get cleaned up. When I picked it up they mentioned that there was some pitting on the intake manifold that they were unable to get out when they were cleaning up the mating surfaces. They suggested using some silicone rather than just the gasket when reinstalling to rectify this issue. I was just brainstorming and thinking that it might be better to replace the whole thing as an intake manifold leak was what got me into this mess in the first place.

What are all of your thoughts on aluminum vs cast iron in salt water usage???

I am relatively sure that the last problems were due to a bad gasket job done by yours truly. We did not remove the distributor and tried to seat the manifold like that. It was a pita at the time and took several attempts. Pretty sure that was the issue not necessarily the pitting last time. The old one is cast iron not sure quite what you meant here???

I would love to know how they fixed the RMS issue.

Ok noted. Thanks. For the Rotation issue. They put the right hand rotation crank in it. Ground the wick lines off of the crank from the 88 block, put a speedi sleave on it, and replaced the rms with a seal without wick lines from a supplier that they use frequently. I do not know all of the details on the seal but supposedly it is not rotation specific. They assembled the block including the oil pump, oil pan, distributor, and timing cover and spun it on the machine that they use for testing compression and oil pressure. Everything supposedly passed without any leaks so we shall see once this thing gets dropped in and it is spun up to full rpm's. Only good news is that there is a 90 day warranty on the rebuild so I am going to run the bejesus out of it once it is broken in and make sure that we are good to go.

Time will tell...

Can't wait for some more of this. Headed to Lake Powell in 16 days. Hope this baby runs...