VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1937-1945 manifold heat valve

Years later I'm here with the same questions. But I wanted to know people's thoughts on a plate to separate the intake manifold and exhaust manifold. Basically a delete of the heat valve. Anyone have thoughts on this

Some say a working manifold heat valve is important but I am far from that convinced though I think it a mistake to put a delete plate in.
Tony

Hi jeeper18

I don't consider the heat riser valve to be necessary, and I'm up here on the cold Canadian prairies. 🙂

Knowing that nearly all of them end up stuck, I've blocked mine in the non heating (warmed up) position.
I'm thinking it's better to have it seize there than in the heating position.
My '46 probably runs a little on the lean side, but even at that, all it needs is to leave the choke out some for the first few minutes to keep it from missing and bucking on acceleration.

I don't think your delete plate would be terribly detrimental performance wise, but, that said...
The problem I see is that you still need to use a gasket in ADDITION to the plate against at least the intake manifold.
That will create a misalignment problem between the exhaust and intake manifolds (up and down that is) at the gasket surfaces where they bolt up to the head.
That may or may not be a problem, but probably won't make anything better.

Thanks for the information guys. It is stuck in the bypass position. In addition I found that all the passage ways in the intake manifold were blocked. So even if the valve was in working order it would have never worked the intended way. So I cleaned the area out and I plan on leaving the valve where it is.

I would think that the dang thing will more than likely stick in the open position. Nonetheless, if it is in the closed position then some work to move it to the open position would be needed. If you ever get to the open (warmed up) position throw some water or clamp on it so that it will seize in the open position. If it does then don't think about anymore. Use the chock to warm up the engine because you're gonna us it anyway.

Is a judge ever gonna grab ahold of the dang thing to see if it is loose or not? Not likely.

Nice to have it working but not necessary given the longstanding headache that comes with messing with it all the time. If you ever get it working it won't be long before it is stuck again.

Best,

Charlie