Well, for about the last 5,000 miles IÆve been driving around with a small exhaust leak, which would disappear when the engine was warm. Yesterday, I guess that the little leak had enough of being ignored, and it decided to make itself known. I looked under the hood and found that the manifold had cracked, clear through, and left a 2mm gap between the now 2 parts of the exhaust manifold (right between the 2 and 4 cylinder).

Obviously, I need to replace this, and I went to www.car-parts.com to look for another part, and the results came back with manifolds from Camaros, Firebirds, S10 pickups and Blazers, with years ranging from 88-94, and engine sizes 2.8L, 3.1L, and 3.4L.

Now I know that these engines are all the same on the outside, for the most part, but has anyone ever swapped out one of these with a ônon-Isuzuö part from one of the results that were returned? I have located a 87 S10 Blazer (3.1L), and before I drop any money, I want to make sure that this will fit.

BTW: I have a Æ92 3.1L Rodeo.

Yes, any manifold or headers for a 3.1L will bolt up to your engine... and being a GM engine, these should be easy enough to find. However, can't guarentee they'll fit even your engine compartment and layout unless you find them specially for the Rodeo. Maybe someone else will know of an application that can be gaurenteed fitting.

-Rob

They are supposed to cross-reference if another vehicle's parts fit your application. I'd go to a local wrecking yard, where there should be no shortage of S-10 pickups and Blazers. Take a look at the manifold of a 2.8, they may be identical. I checked the Car-Part.com listings and they show a 2.8 Trooper to have the same, I expect they're correct. They also listed the specific manifold off a 3.1 Rodeo so why not just order that one?

You could also ask a local wrecking yard to check the interchange manual for you. There are lots of 2.8 parts kicking around so you should be able to get one very reasonably priced.

It looks like the cross reference from car-parts.com was correct, as I picked up a 3.1L manifold from an S10 yesterday, and it was the right part. Funny thing was that the wrecking yard didn't show this as being a cross-reference part.

The only difference in the original and the replacement was the bolts that were used to connect the crossover pipe to the manifold. The S10 used 2 bolts with springs, where the Isuzu uses studs and nuts. I tried to use the bolts, but the flange holes were too small, so I ended up having to extract the studs from the old manifold. Installing the studs would have been a thousand times easier while the manifold was on the bench, but thereÆs no real challenge there, and that would have reduced my need to get another beer <img border="0" alt="[Drunk]" title="" src="graemlins/drunk.gif" />

ItÆs all back together now, and quiet (or at least as quiet as itÆs going to get). So, the lesson learned here, in case someone else is faced with this problem, is that the exhaust manifolds from the 2.8, 3.1, and 3.4 will work <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

<small>[ July 10, 2003, 08:11 AM: Message edited by: rattler98 ]</small>

Why not a set of headers? When I broke the ex. system. I found it cheeper and better to install a header on Joe Isuzu but he is a 2.6L. Joe sounds realy bad now. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Yea, I thought about this, but given that I was starting to feel a bit woozy from the carbon monoxide I thought it better to fix it quickly, and put off the upgrade until later. I was actually a little upset to find that it was the manifold, and not one of the pipes that had gone bad, as this would have been the perfect excuse for a free-flow cat and muffler.