Blew a headgasket

[Torque]

Can't beleive it. This car's been off the road now for 3 years (after I dropped a valve which took out my last motor). Been building up my new motor, working out numerous kinks etc. (opti, water pump, O2 sensors, cam timing etc.), finally today, got it on the road, the thing screamed! So much so that it sheared the 2 bolts off that hold the power steering pump on and caused me to lose my belt around 7,500RPM.

Anyway, long story short, fixed the bolts etc. got the car back on the road, hit it getting on the freeway. After a hard pull through 3 gears, noticed the motor tone changed a bit. Figured a plug wire came loose etc. Then, when pulling off the freeway to get back to the house, I revved it to see how responsive it was, (was hoping it was just loaded up) looked behind me and a puff of white smoke.

Pulled off the freeway, the smoke got much worse. Tried to creep home but the temp was rising. Shut the motor down when it got to about 200/210 degrees. Called a tow truck. When I tried to re-start, it sounds like it's hydro'd as it won't turn over.

Can motors hydro when you blow a ghasket? There is no way this motor got hot enough to lock up. I really don't think I have any damaged valvetrain as I have been there before and you get a lot of backfiring out of the exhaust or through the intake and you can barely keep it running. This motor would have run fine if I let it.

Could I have damaged anything else if I hydro'd the motor? If I had not stretched my wife's patience by running into all these problems I would go ahead and diagnose but she deserves some attention after all the time this has taken.

Any adivce would be apprecaited. Baffled as to how I could have blown a head ghasket, blown up a bunch of things, thrown rods etc. but never a headgasket.

Sorry for the long post, thanks in advance for any helpful advise!

[Joe 1320]

Water won't compress like air. If a cylinder was filled with coolant it will happen. Better hope the water didn't circulate through the oil or your bearings will be toast.

[N20LT4Bird]

I blew my headgasket 3 months ago when my elec water pump crapped out. I did the heads with the engine in the car. Have fun!! I have heard its easier to drop the whole subframe with engine and tranny attached to do a head job (especially with headers). I believe it.

[Joe 1320]

Nah, it's not tall that bad. I just did mine 6 months ago. Getting the passenger side exhaust manifold off is the toughest part.

[N20LT4Bird]

Maybe it was the headers, but I remember swearing alot more than the usual head gasket job.

[Torque]

I have now had 3 motors in and out of this car in the past 8 months and this is the 2nd set of heads on this motor (ran the stock heads/cam/exhaust to get me through an emissions re-call).

I am definitely used to doing heads in the car. It is not fun, but when you get it down and you know the sequence of what to do by heart, it's not as bad. The long tube headers make it easier also since they are lighter and easier to get around than the stock headders.

Little concerned at this point, only had a short bit of time last night so I only pulled 6 of the plugs. As expected, 2 of the plugs on the drivers side were wet (#5 and #7), only could get the #2 and #4 out before quitting time, they looked great, tried to turn over the motor (figured I had identified the cylendars that would have been hydrod, so was going to crank to get the water out), motor still won't turn over. I have my fingers crossed that the #6 and or #8 are the ones hydrod. If not I am hosed.

Still don't think there is any way I ran it nearly long enough to do internal damage let alone a hard seize. Still holding out hope!

[Torque]

Forgot to ask in my last post, why did you guys replace your head gaskets? Was this from a prefiously planned head job? I am baffled as to why mine could have gone. I am wondering if my torque wrench need to be calibrated. I hope I will find some evidence when I pull the heads....

I was using the fel-pro high performance gaskets (the thinner version to get a bit more compression). Should I go to the thicker gasket?

[N20LT4Bird]

Originally posted by Torque
Forgot to ask in my last post, why did you guys replace your head gaskets?

I did mine because the engine saw the high side of 270 degrees when my meziere w.p. went south. I warped the heads and the gasket went of course. Bummer, but it needed a new valve job anyways!

[Joe 1320]

I did mine because I started leaking coolant into the #7 hole. The head bolts are prone to loosening a bit over time, usually on the outer holes. I would make sure your heads are perfectly flat, and you know you don't re-use the head bolts right? They are torque to yield and shouldn't be re-used. I also don't like pulling both heads at the same time. I prefer unbolting one head, cleaning and prepping then reinstall. Then unbolt the other head and do the same. There is a problem that some people have experienced where the mains get wiped out soon after a head and cam swap is performed. Supposedly there is a little shift that takes place, so I have been able to avoid that on the motors that I've worked on doing heads and cam swaps. Never experienced that problem. Whether it's that proceedure or not, who knows. The principle seemed to make sense so I do it that way.

[Torque]

Good to hear some experience from others about what issues they have seen. I did re-use the head bolts, they are ARP's and I was told the ARP's can be re-used. I know you can't re-use the stock ones, was I wrong to do this? I have used these on 2 other motors without issue.

The other thing I was thinking was that I was too lean at high RPM and it caused the heads to get real hot real quick (despite my low temperature on my guage). Could this be possible? Figured this might be a stretch. I think I might have been running out of fuel at 6500-7500RPM.

I like the idea of one head at a time. Unfortunatley, don't want to waste a head gasket on one side before confirming the other side is not wiped. Maybe when I am just doing a head-swap for the sake of doing a head-swap!

[Joe 1320]

ARPs can be reused. For what it's worth, I do a 5 step torque cycle evenly dividing the total torque figure. It takes a while, but I feel it is well worth the effort.

You could have heated the head excessively, but if you were running out of fuel the computer would have likely pulled out the timing and it would have nosed over. A more likely scenerio would have been an air pocket in the head cooling passage that caused a hot spot, or I hate to suggest, an improper torque of the fastener. Has the wrench been calibrated lately? Did you use oil or assembly lube on the fastener base?

[Torque]

My Torque wrench has never been calibrated. It is not a cheap model but it's not Snap-On either. Only about 3 years old and has only built about 3 motors.

It probably should be calibrated, I will definitely have this done. After this experience, I will probably buy new ARP's despite being able to use mine again.

I know I did the torque settings right, I think the wrench could be wrong.

I use Red Locktite on everything so this is what I use for lubricant. Should I be using oil instead? I know some manuals call for this. I just like to make sure things don't back out...

[Torque]

ONe other thought, could I be building too much cylendar pressure? My cam was advanced (according to my degreeing) but because of the opti, I had to put it in striaght up. Only by 3 degrees...

[Joe 1320]

The torque settings might be off....... Loctite will keep the bolts from backing out, but won't give accurate torque readings if used as a lubricant. Use moly assembly lube directly under the bolt heads and torque to spec. You can still use loctite on the threads, but not under the bolt head.

I don't think advancing or retarding the cam had anything to do with it. All that does is simply change the powerband of the cam. Advancing it builds lower rpm power at the expense of high rpm power, retarding it does the opposite. There is always a trade off.

[Torque]

Thanks for the heads up. Would like to say that the torque settings/wrench/lack of lubricant etc. were the "root cause". Really want to get this behind me, I hate not knowing what caused something.

Definitely understand the CAM timing issues. Did a ton of research on how to get around degreeing cams with the opti. as I really wanted to get my powerband up higher and 3 degrees advance (bad grind most likely) drops powerband by 6-700rpm. Could not find anything in terms of how to degree a cam successfully without extensive programming to get around the opti.

Anybody that has gone through an overheat have bottom end damage?

N20LT4Bird- did you have any bottom end damage when you had your overheat? This is my next concern...