>
>>Well the intake manifold cracked on my 98 GT right behind the
>>alternator - I found a TSB on it and talked to some locals that knew
>>about it too, but the dealer is looking at the VIN and saying "doesn't
>>apply to your car". - Can anyone else who has had this problem let me
>>know how they handled it?
>
> As I come in from the garage after adding coolant in the final step of
> changing the cracked plastic intake manifold on my 96 GT, I see
> someone with the same problem.
>
> Seems Ford had an obvious problem with the injected-molded intake
> manifolds found on the 4.6 SOHC & DOHC engines,though the singles were
> more prone than the doubles.
> All of this was supposed to be fixed in 98, and indeed the problem(s)
> dramatically declined at that time. But I have heard of a few 98's
> using surplus 94-96 (designed) manfiolds, which I discount as false
> information. Your 98' car should have the PI heads, which take a
> different intake than the 94-96 non-PI heads which leads me to believe
> that you in fact do NOT have a surplus 94-96 intake but did receive a
> defective one all the same.
> In my instance, it cracked on the intake runner for #1 cylinder,
> leaning out that chamber and burning the valve. No compression on that
> one. I had available another engine, a '98 with less miles than my
> '96 (48K vs 74K). The machine shop(s) I went to all wanted nearly
> $1600 for a valve job on the aluminum heads on the '96 and I thought
> the cost a bit prohibitive just for the valve job as that money did
> nothing to fix the cause of the problem, the cracked manifold.
> I did look for manifolds, and with the price I received from my Ford
> dealer ($650), I would have had nearly $2K wrapped up in just the top
> end.
> The problem with my recalled manifold (there was indeed a recall,
> unbeknown to me) was the time limit of seven years which had slipped
> past by a scant 4 months. I was told by the dealer and by other
> members of this newsgroup that the manifolds were prone to crack at
> the 70K mile mark.
>
> Mine cracked at 71,000.

The TSB is 02-2-2, if you google for 97M91 you'll see the size of the
problem. It actually affected 96 to 01's (along with a bunch of other non-
mustang Fords), when they finally went with an aluminum crossover for the
coolant, which is what the replacement units have now. I've seen a 7-year
limit on it, which is frustrating as my car was built in 8/97, but it
wasn't originally sold until 4/98 according their own computers, so the 7
year limit hasn't expired if you go by the original warranty date, but it
has if you go by the manufacture date, which they seem to be doing.

Oh and somebody posted that it cost them $140 - that ain't bad. They're
$299 now aftermarket with the metal improvements, dealer wants $500+ for
it.

I'm not thrilled with the situation but I can't spring for a complete
head/intake/etc redo, so I have to go with basic replacement for now. The
part that chaps my ace is that it's a known bad part but they didn't make
it a recall for 98+, just a "fix it if it comes in broke".

Chris