I tried installing the Crawford Plenum yesterday, but no luck. Everything was going smoothly until I got to the TB. I could not budge those 4 allen bolts for the life of me. I may have stripped one of the bolts. So I have 2 questions. Any tips to get these 4 bolts off? If the bolt is stripped, how do I get it off?

 

Aight man, I had the SAME exact thing happen to me! It wasn't fun!!! AT ALL!!!

The 4 bolts are 5MM metric if I remember correctly. I tried getting away with using standard and I stripped the one on the bottom left. PITA to get to.

After 500 trips back n forth to Sears and Home Depot, buying every extractor etc. I finally had no choice but to remove the stock plenum and TB together as one piece. There is just no room to work on it attached to the car.

1- Go to infiniti and order 4 new hex bolts. They are very cheap and chances are you may have messed up or slightly stripped the others so to avoid stripping them further when installing the new plenum, you are better off with new ones. I think Infiniti ripped me off for like $10.

2- Get the correct size allen wrench 5MM I believe and get one that you will be able to use in the tight working areas!

3- Disconnect TB, Z-Tube, remove all the bolts securing the stock plenum (I believe there are 12 around the perimeter and 6 in the middle.

4- Remove plenum and tb together. BE SURE TO COVER LOWER PLENUM with something so parts etc don't accidently fall down...you'll be screwed if they do!

5- With plenum and TB off the car, I tried every extractor and none worked for me. Then I decided to try cutting a notch in the head and use a MONSTER flat head screwdriver (another trip to sears) to remove it. NO DICE

6- What ended up working was carefully drilling the head of the bolt, being extremely careful not to screw up or enlarge the original hole in the TB. I was able to use a smaller bit and maybe I got lucky, but the head eventually snapped off without having to drill through the TB. If you have a dremel, and access, you can simply cut the head of that bolt off. The TB is not threaded so once you remove the head, you will be able to pull it apart

7- some guys may say that you can't disconnect the TB, but I asked around and did it with no problems. I didn't even have to perform th eTB reset procedure as listed on Technosquares website.

Good Luck!

 

Have you tried a small pair of Vise Grips? Were you trying to remove the bolts when the plenum and TB were still warm?

 

No and No.

 

it's actually 6mm. Just had to order them. got them off boltsdepot.com for like $0.45 a pop.