I have a 94 buick century with the 3100 v6 in it... I have an odd problem that i think is a cracked/warped intake plenum. The car will start and run like sh*t... but if i restrict the intake by putting my hand over it... it runs fine. To make the car driveable I have put a piece of ducttape over about 1/4th of the intake air inlet, and the car is driveable(I even tow with it like that, and its fine), and besides a bit of hesitiation once in a while, was driving fine. BUt lately it seems to have got worse, it will stall and sometimes i have to open the hood and play with the intake restriction to get it to start (I drove it 2800 km's to myrtle beach like this [img]smileys/smiley4.gif[/img])... I was just wondering if anyone has seen this issue? I've gone to a few places and they say they never heard of it, but a few others say Yes, its the plenum, replace it. I have taken all intake lines off the maniford and plugged them to make sure it wasnt a defective device like a brake booster, and i have seperated the exahust to make sure it wasn the converter pluged, but nothing helped..... Can anyone verify? Id like to get it fixed, but its very hard to find any Century's in the junkyard to get one off to try, and new is like $400.......... Thanks


Steve

 

Steve,


It is not likely that the plenum is at fault.It is most likely the plenum Gaskets. It has been a while but I think the gasket set for the plenum is about 60.00. Berfore I would buy a plenum I would take an afternoon and replace the gaskets. If you are also losing coolant this may be another indication that the plenum gaskets need to be replaced. The 3.1 is known to have this problem as well