Do your Coolant temps and AIT's a favor

[TitaniumTT]

Plug the exhaust port passages in your housings. I know there are a few 2nd gen owners in the middle of rebuilds now so I thought I'd post this here as well.

Recently I rebuilt a motor and the ONLY thing that I changed, aside from the seals and the housings, was to plug the exhaust port passages in the housings. In my case, they were RE housings and have a HUGE port with an insert in them. I first tried tapping the insert for 1/4" NPT but the insert started spinning. So I drove that out and tried for 3/8" NPT. No dice as the housing would have to be machined. Instead what I ended up doing was taking my plate of 3/8" 5052 aluminum and cutting out something that resembled a circle of about .6". Then I spent a fair amount of time hand fitting it to .550" with a slight taper in it. I then drove that mother into the passage blocking all the exhaust gas from making it's way through the housing, into the LIM which, obviously, has the ACV & EGR passages blocked. I was quite proud of those little pieces. Here they lay



So, what was the result? Sadly I cannot speak intelligently on the AIT's as I'm measuring them pre-TB. Coolant temps however......... mine are retarded to begin with, generally they were around 174-175* on the highway and never getting above 187*. They are consistantly ~4* colder and the ambient temp has risen about 10* on average. All that from blocking the little f'n port underneath the exhaust sleeves. I will NEVER build another motor with these things left open.