First, I would like to say that I have been on here reading the last few weeks and want to say thank you to all for all the great information on here. I have learned a lot here. It is a great site. Second, I am new at this so bear with me.
I just got my first Corvette a month ago, 1999, and I am fixing to change the plugs. I have read all the posts there is on this site as well all over the internet. I have a good grasp of the procedure for this car from you guys. There is one question however that I cannot find an answer to. Do you put any gasket sealer on the AIR pipe gasket? Would appreciate your advice.

Thank you in advance

 

First off welcome to the forum.

You would want to put anti seize on both sides of that gasket & also on the bolts.

 

I join you in welcoming a new forum member, and also agree that anti-seize is your friend anytime you're dealing with exhaust related bolts and fasteners.

 

Thank you for the welcome, from you both, and the advice. I will take care of it next weekend. This weekend is cleaning the Blackwing filter.............Fair winds

 

And following seas.........

 

Btw, here's a little tip on re-oiling the Blackwing:

Like any of the natural or synthetic aftermarket filters, one of the worst things (and likely most common, easily made mistake) that can happen when cleaning and re-oiling the filter material is over-oiling. Too much oil can result in oil-contamination of the MAF sensors and/or the air temp sensor (or both) and can result in poor performance issues.

The cleaning part is fairly easy but requires that you use no form pressurized water (NO garden hose sprayers or sink faucet set on "high") for rinsing, nor any sort of artificial heat (hair dryer/heat gun) whatsoever for drying. Natural dry only. If you want to set in the sunlight to help speed things up, or perhaps also wrap clean paper towels around the outside and inside as well, I don't see that being a problem, just NO hair driers.

Secondly, as far as over-oiling is concerned, the old saying "less is more" is true here. Seems like the biggest mistake many people make is rushing everything and applying far too much oil and then just slapping the filter back on the car. You must take your time here. Allow osmosis to do it's job. Lightly spray the oil, not worrying about any open spots as you'll be going back a couple more times. Allow it to sit for awhile and check for uniformity of color (blue in this case) and LIGHTLY re-apply as necessary, again allowing it to sit for a number of minutes (15-20?) and for the wicking action to take place.

After your satisfied with the light blue, even, color, take more clean white paper towels and wrap them around the outside and gently press them up against the filter. Any excess oil will tend to be absorbed into the paper towels. You can tell your good to go when little or no more blue starts to show up on the towels. I used to even gently stuff some white towels inside the filter as well, pressing with my hand along the inside walls so as to absorb from the "backside' so-to-speak.

I always planned my cleaning activity to allow for overnight drying and then re-oiling the next day. Taking the time to do this right will result in many more thousands of worry-free driving miles using your Blackwing.

HTH

 

"I always planned my cleaning activity to allow for overnight drying and then re-oiling the next day. Taking the time to do this right will result in many more thousands of worry-free driving miles using your Blackwing."

LoneStarFRC, Thank you for the good advice. There is really not a lot out there on cleaning this filter. And their instructions are not that great. I had planned on taking it slow anyway so I would not screw it up.

update 2:00pm Sat: It is really looks more intimidating than it is doing it. Drying in the sun now........will oil later

 

Ypu'll need a double u-joint short extension for the left rear plug.

 

That's a handy tool for sure, but it's amazing how much more room you get buy removing the entire coil-pack assembly on the driver's side. Quick and easy too:

Five 10 mm bolts and one multi-pin electrical connector. Leave the plug wires attached on the coil end (optional) and lift off.

Bada-bing.

 

Yep I had the u-joint short extension....and every other tool I have read about. Good tip above LoneStarFRC thanks...was not sure if I could do that. It would have helped. Man it was a bitch getting No. 7 out and in. about three hours of work on that and No. 5. Could not get the air pipe (tube) off (I have KOOKS headers and did not want to break the small nozzle the air pipe flange is attached to. Will have to oil that for a couple days to break it free for next time. Anyway the rest were pretty darn easy. Oh by the way I am 6'3" and 280 lbs. my hands would not fit into the space for #7 and #5. My wife, god bless her actually did those two with coaching and had so much fun helped do the rest. So we fined up about 6:00pm showered and took her for a drive to get Mexican food....yum. After that decieded to put about 30 good miles on the car and it had a whole nother feel to it....wow!.......with the clean filter, new plugs, NGK TR5's by the way .040 gap, and new GMPP wires it showed a difference. It still had the original wires and somebody gapped the TR5's at 35. By the way No. 4 wire was barely on. Now I have a baseline for the new to me car. Had it checked out at the dealer, breaks front and back, new pads and resurfaced the rotors, oil changed, all fluids checked, clean air filter and new plugs and wires. Now to drive it...hmmmm. I think the Devils backbone will do this fall.......savvy

Thanks for all the input you guys are great!!!!!!!