So I pulled the 3.4L last night to do a little work around the engine bay and when I went to remove the nut on the drivers side rear stud, I found this...
I haven't the slightest clue how it happened. It definitely made removing the Whipple a lot easier though since this is by far the hardest nut to remove.
I also noticed that I had a small leak at the front pulley hub. So I called Whipple and put in a Tech Support request. They told me that they would pass my request along and I would hear back from them tomorrow (today). So I receive a call and answer the phone. Low and behold, it's Art Whipple. I explain to him what I found and he's going to send me a new seal with instructions on how to install it, (6) new blower studs, and a new ARP hub stud and nut. Apparently there was an issue with some of the hub bolts breaking on a few Cobra kits and they are now installing an ARP stud and nut to remedy this. Best of all is I don't have to pay for any of it. I'll gladly install a new seal myself if it means I don't have to ship that huge chunk of metal to California.
While I was at it I did a few other things. I decided to remove the plenum to get a better angle on the broken stud. Plus, I'm probably going to have to heat that area with a torch to get it out and I didn't want to chance messing up the finish on the plenum. I decided to remove the 90 degree vacuum fitting on the back of the plenum since I'm not using it. I used one of my left over 1/8" NPT plugs from my nitrous kit to plug it....
I decided to go ahead and remove the vacuum fittings on the side also since I'm not using them either. I plugged them with (2) Edelbrock Black 1/4" NPT plugs...
Here's what the back of the blower looks like with the plenum removed...
And a shot of the bottom of the blower...
While I was at it, I decided to swap out my braided stainless fuel hoses for some black nylon hoses. I also found a better spot for my baro-sensor since the bracket it use to be mounted to is gone now....
Needless to say, I'm very impressed with the way Whipple handled this. The only thing I'm a little bummed about is not being able to drive my truck until I fix this issue. But like they say, if you wanna play you gotta pay.... Or something like that....