Suckage: Head gasket out

[shoeish]

The fuel weirdness of my mustang finally got out of hand and somehow contributed to a blown head gasket.. on my way to get the fuel management stuff fixed, wouldn't you know.

That's what the boyz at Outlaw Performance, say, anyway. The head gasket isn't on the supercharger side, so it won't be too expensive to fix. They guarantee it will be cheaper than to have the ford dealer do it, so I guess thats a plus.

Own a high performance car, pay more to keep it running, I guess.

[johnnymk]

What a coincidence! My head gasket went Saturday night in my Dodge Spirit.
The thermostat had been opening late and then the water temperature gauge was bobbing around, like it had a mind of it's own. I couldn't figure what the problem was.I changed the thermostat several times. Well, the head gasket blew and now it has to be replaced. I hope the head isn't cracked, since it overheated pretty bad.

[shoeish]

At first I thought my thermostat was stuck as my heater would quit working and my temp would rise. Then I noticed all the white smoke and my engine loading up and not running just right.

Good luck getting yours fixed.

[coleslaw]

I don't think my thermostat has ever worked in the 5 years that I have had my car. I should probably get that taken care of eventually, before something like this happens...

[shoeish]

If your car works at all, it means the thermostat is stuck open, and that is okay. It just means your heater will take bloody ages to work.

If its stuck shut, you would have had a problem by now.

I don't think my thermostat is related to my head gasket failure, I just think the symptoms were the same as a stuck thermostat.

[johnnymk]

Here is what I recently learned about thermostats:
The thermostat has to be completely immersed in water. If there are air pockets in the system, the thermostat may or may not open when it is supposed to. The cause of air can be a slowly failing head gasket or air which entered when you drained your radiator to add antifreeze. Some systems have to be purged of air so that the thermostat can work properly.
Also. I have heard that too cool temperatures in the cooling system may affect the sensors in fuel injected systems, possibly causing too lean or too rich a mixture.
Shoeish, I am going to surmise that your head gasket blew because of the increased turbo pressures you were playing with.Are your cylinders recessed at the perimeter to accept O-Rings? I have heard that this is a common practice with turbo engines nowadays.

[shoeish]

The cylinders are not o-ringed. It is very common on highly modified motors, but is a pretty expensive endeavor to pull the motor, strip it, and send it to a machine shop to do. Besides, with the 5-9lbs of boost I am running this should have been no problem for even a cheap set of head gaskets (good ones were in there). I only got 9lbs of boost between 5500 and 6000 rpm, speeds that I rarely let my engine see. 5lbs with an occasional 8.5-9 should have been no problem for a correctly tuned motor.

When the car gets torn apart I'll post some pictures and explanation of what happened and how it can be prevented.

[shoeish]

Wow.

Its going to cost right at $1000 to fix the car. Both head gaskets were out between the middle two cylinders.

The motor WAS o-ringed as it turned out, and they blame the cause of failure on whomever prepped the head/block surfaces last time they were done. I guess its only a $300 process or so, and can be done in the car. Stupid me.

It wouldn't be near as much money, but I had them put on the best Fel-Pro gaskets on when reassembling, including intake gaskets, thermostat gaskets, and any other gaskets. I am putting felpro lock wire gaskets on, also. Another reason it is so high is that they had to take the supercharger and all the duct work all the way off. At one point in the repair, nothing was under the hood but a radiator, shortblock, and exhaust.

Anyway, he swears the only way they could blow now is with 15psi of boost AND nitrous, if even then. We'll see how it handles the 9psi of boost i'm currently running, then maybe 12. I will never use nitrous. Ick.

He also mentioned that they took pictures as they were doing the work, so I'll post them when I get them, as well as a few dyno runs.

[johnnymk]

wow, expensive! Glad to see you found a competent shop to fix it, though. Are those aluminum heads in that car? I also discovered recently that some engines use "stretch" bolts for mounting the head to the block. I believe they can only be used once.

[shoeish]

Yes, aluminum heads and the stretch type bolts. I should have it back later today. Woohoo.