Phenolic Spacers: Urgent call to those with them installed

[CoolVanilla]

It has recently come to light that there may be an issue with the install of these spacers. We have three confirmed cases of significant oil leakage due to improper installation of them. In one case, this leakage has most certainly fouled the spark plugs and could be the cause of the loss of compression in that cylinder.

Those that have these installed, please speak up here with your result. In all three cases thus far, oil is visible on the top of the intake manifold. Please take a quick moment and pop your hood; inspect your manifold and the surrounding area for any oil leakage and report back if you do or do not see any oil. You may also want to swipe the spacer material itself to see if any oil is present; use a white paper towel as the oil may not be apparently visible due to the black spray paint used to color the spacers.

Pictures are coming soon that show the leakage issue on one particular install. In that case, the vent gaskets rolled over. The other two confirmed cases may share this similar cause, or the silicone gasketing material may be the culprit.

If you do see oil, it is strongly suggested you make every effort to uninstall the spacers. In two of these three cases, when the intakes were removed the oil leakage was far worse than was evidenced by the visible oil on top of the manifold.

[Moparrbust]

Were these on the 6.1 or the 5.7 engines? Did the people with issues use OEM intake gaskets or did they just slap some silicone on?

[CoolVanilla]

Two of them are 5.7s. The OEM gaskets for the 5.7 are actually 8 individual O-rings. So, from the manifold to the spacer the o-rings are used. From the spacer to the head silicone is used. In one case, the install was carried out by GSM, at GSM HQ. I'm not sure about the 6.1L setup. Someone feel free to comment.

In all cases, the installs were carried out "by the book", exactly as per the GSM instructions.

[Ghostface Mag]

Thanks for the heads-up CV....I was just thinking about this spacer for when I do the Heads/Cam....

[Hurst Equipped]

and what is the point of this spacer? to help keep the intake cooler? my intake never gets hot, not even in heavy traffic.

if i made these spacers, i would have at least o-ringed them before i put them to the market. they sound very cheaply made.

[CoolVanilla]

and what is the point of this spacer? to help keep the intake cooler? my intake never gets hot, not even in heavy traffic.

if i made these spacers, i would have at least o-ringed them before i put them to the market. they sound very cheaply made.

Well the why is covered in great detail here. On the 6.1L they have been shown via IR temp gun to insulate the intake from the heat of the head, resulting in a relatively cooler intake. On the 5.7L, the thermal difference between a cool and hot head as measured at the intake by an IR gun is nearly nonexistent; likely due to our plastic intakes.

There is some speculation that there is a performance improvement due to an increased runner length as well. But this is in no way proven definitively.

As for how they are made... well I have three observations that you might find interesting. These are my observations only and may or may not be of concern.

1) The fit. These pics were taken at GSM during the install on a 5.7. That ridge is right in the stream of the AF mixture, and I have to assume they can't be conducive to a turbulent free flow.




2) The color of the material is naturally beige. Apparently feeling this was an undesirable color, GSM has taken to spray painting them black. Not sure this is a good idea on a porous surface that interfaces with fuel.

3) Related to 2, and as you can see by the above pics, the material seems to be porous and therefore, probably absorbant. Its not out of reason to assume fuel and or oil might eventually soak these?

[aries4life]

I always cut phenolic DRY at work. If coolant touches it you get an.. umm.. undesireable result

Wet phenolic = bad

There are different grades of phenolic as well. Do a search and you should get a plethera of info. I'm about to do one as well for backup.

[Northern Rider]

Thanks for the heads-up, CV. My spacer is sitting on the back seat of my car, waiting for me to install it.

Think I'll wait a bit longer to see how all this shakes out.

[magnumdude]

Not to bash or anything, but I will NEVER buy anything from GSM

[Redfox0099]

Pst Edited to reduce flaming:


Point made....Regardless if this causes my spring to break...my intake was leaking oil when installed per instructions.

Installed per instructions with longer bolts and inch pounds torque wrench...leakage around cylinder #5..bottom row, 2nd from end.

[aries4life]

CV, you saw a raw spacer, correct?

If so, was it brown? This is a good insulator of heat. I cut some parts for production lines out of this. I believe this uses paper or cotton fibres for the base but don't quote me on that - it's what it looks and feels like. Side note: This material will absolutely eat any cutting tool not made out of carbide alive. Even the carbide endmills wear at an extremely fast rate. It's like cutting compacted dirt. I hate cleaning a machine out afterwards - the dust gets everywhere and can easily 'contaminate' the coolant. I don't have a vaccum setup on my machines because I don't cut it often enough to warrant it.

If it was green it's glass base... G-10, G-11... This is an excellent electrical insulator [ think circuit board ] I have made large circuit boards out of these types of phenolic for the govt. as well as various controller components and odds and ends for other companies out of these types.

[1FST4DR]

So yeah....I was gonna start a thread on Monday after I installed my Spacers saying how much I loved them....that was until on Wednesday my car broke down...went out to start it and heard a noise...smelled gas and then knew I was screwed...damm spacer.

Code P0305- Cylinder #5 Misfire.
Had to have it towed 90 miles home ($250) to my dealer


Took the intake off today to diagnoses the problem and this is what I saw.....oil all over the place on the intake. I got the car home and did a compression test and all the cylinders were around 200 except #5...it was 0.
I changed all my plugs (even though they barely had 3000 miles on them) and some had a little oil...but #5 was coated with oil, fouled, and looked horrible. I pulled the valve cover and found this at the #5 Valve.







This in my opinion and that of others is a direct result of oil seepage from faulty directions and bad porting from the Spacer.... Now don't get my wrong, I love what the spacers are supposed to do...but not how they were made or lack of quality instructions/installation equipment.

I called Scott at GSM to tell him what I had found, told him I had to have it towed and will have to pull my head now...and he was like "Great, thanks for the update, we will send extra gaskets with it from now on." Wow....fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice shame on you.

Can you explain how the oil leakage caused the spring to break???

[1fastsedan]

The good news: I just went out to my apartment complex parking lot to check mine and all appears good. No evidence of oil leaking.

The bad news: Some stupid little misbehaving devil spawn children were throwing rocks from the top of the ridge behind our complex down into the parking lot. They smashed the windshield of the car parked next to mine and the rear passenger window of an SUV parked in the row across from me. By dumb luck and fortunate space availability I parked behind a small tree on the ridge when I got home tonight and my car escaped undamaged.

The spacers are milled from the brown paper based phenolic material, I'm not sure why GSM is painting them black now. Maybe I'm missing something, but if the stock gasket goes back down against the head where is the oil leak coming from?

[aries4life]

Oh ya, and it would take less than a minute a gasket to cut in o-ring seats...

[Moparrbust]

Damn; I just ordered a set of spacers for my car yesterday..................now I'm VERY weary of putting them on. Maybe I'll give GSM a call on Monday and if they haven't shipped I'll just cancel them.