Intake Leak

["Joseph M. Shaw, II" <MikeIIDC@domain.elided>]

Well, I posted this queary to John L. already at his private e-mail, but
didn't want the rest of you to feel left out.  I have the heads off of
my engine, and in cleaning the parts to reinstall, I found a small hole
in the bottom of my intake manifold.  It is on the under side that would
sit next to the "valley pan," or tappet cover-two names I've heard used
for the plate that covers the guts of the block.  On the bottom side,
there are five-I think, it's not sitting right here with me-small round
indentations-look almost like "freeze plugs"  Only about 1/8" deep, if
that, and uniform and round.  All are solid, and appear to be part of
the molding-and the one with the holes is, of course very thin.  The
others, because they have no holes cannot be determined, but I assume
they are all the same.  Anyway, there is no noticeable rust pn the
outside, just typical metal w/ a slightly rough oxidized kind of
surface, but these holes in the indentation are very small, non-uniform,
just slightly larger than pin-hole style holes, which gives me the
impression of rust holes.  My question:  How serious is this going to
be.  Is the base side of the intake manifold separate from the flow
channels and just for support, or is air leaking in here and throwing
off my mixture?  I was told by an exhaust man that I had an intake
manifold leak, but didn't know where it was.  Is this it?  Must I change
this, or is it workable as is?  And I'm the guy that had the
"overfiring" problem.  After all of this, is this possibly the root of
my problem?  John L. recently theorized that I could have a bad
electrical connector going to my coil/distributor area, and I don't have
the ceramic-style connector that I've been told is used in that area for
heat control (I think, or I've been told it's called a "ballast
resistor."  Does that sound right?  Basically, I'm trying to get this
thing back together before it starts raining for another two weeks.  Is
the manifold at this point a must do?
I'll be interested in hearing some opinions on this.
As always, thanks for any and all suggestions/support!
Michael