I'm getting pretty frustrated, here... what a dumba__ I am.
Over the weekend, I dug into my motor and replaced my hydraulic lifters, thinking they were the source of my engine that shakes and has a random miss at idle, and then is fine above idle. Well, turns out after the job was done, there seems to be no improvement in idle quality. I do still need to go back over the valves and adjust them again just to make sure, but I doubt that's going to really change anything.
So that didn't help my idle quality... big deal. I can deal with that... I'll go back to the drawing board and try to figure out the shake another day... Well, what it did do is make the normal operating temperature rise about 20-30 degrees!!! I used to average between 180-190, even on the hottest days. Today, I had trouble keeping it below 210, and when I pulled into work, I shut it down just as it was getting into the unacceptable range.
The temp will rise incredibly quick at idle, and even after driving on the freeway at like 70 mph (which usually makes it cool down completely) it couldn't get below 200 degrees.
I'm thinking I'll replace the thermostat.. maybe I got some junk in the water ports and have clogged the t-stat or something.
Oh, I used the Fel-pro 1250 gasket (the one with the blue rtv-like stuff already on the intake manifold side. It said in the instructions to cut the water ports to fit. I put them on the heads, and they looked fine as they were. I have the Performer RPM 351W intake, and I remember trying to be careful not to let a gasket go on the wrong side, to prevent a coolant passage from being blocked or something, but I was in a hurry doing this work.
Does anyone know if the Fel-pro gaskets (1250) that you use on engines with aluminum manifolds have a left and right arrangement that I could've screwed up?
I hope I don't have to pull the intake again, that would be another 21.95 for the gasket, not to mention probably another full day's work.