Possible headgasket

[molch]

Took my car for a blast this afternoon, did a first, second, third take off and then bam white smoke bellowing out the back of the car.

pulled over into a service station and the car stalled while filling the servo with white smoke.

checked under the bonnet and oil was over the right and left hand sides of engine accessories. Leaked either from head and or from rocker cover but hard to tell exactly. Took pip cap off and white smoke was coming out of the oil cap.

coolant still looks normal bright green and not low.

Let evrythigg settle and it turns over but won't start.

got it towedhome and did a compression test and got the following results:

1= 100
2= 120
3= 90
4=125
5=90
6=160

Did a wet test on cylinder 1 and it turned up the same compression.

so I've pulled the rocker cover off and everything looks ok, engine turns over.

Cranked the engine over by hand heaps trying to get the timing marks to line up and haven't been able to yet.

so thinking and hoping either head gasket or timing issue but could be something worse like ringlands etc?

Is next step to pull the head and take a look at the gasket, valves, pistons and bores?

[Puffwagon]

Firstly, that sucks mate, a bunch of us have been having breakdowns lately.

 

Don't ya have to crank the engine like 47 times or something to get the timing marks to line up?

 

I don't think you've broken a bunch of pistons at once. More likely it's the head gasket and or warped head. Regardless of what it is, you know the head is coming off with those compression numbers. If it won't start you can remove it straight away as it's just as easy to push or tow with the head on or off.

[molch]

Yeah man sucks bad. I'm really hoping it's the head gasket which is almost a best case scenario, time for stronger head studs and atomic gaskets.

 

Looks like next weekend is pulling the car apart instead of driving it like I was planning :-/ and busses for a few weeks!

[FiftyOne]

(In my defense I'm dealing with several worn and wearing components from a decade old high performance vehicle)

 

Sucks to hear about the breakdown mate.  Those compression numbers are a little all over the shop, wondering if (assuming the gasket has gone) that somehow its bent a rod or two?  I'm with Puff though, head to come off or at a minimum a borascope to see what you can see in the plug holes

[Puffwagon]

24 minutes ago, molch said:

I'm really hoping it's the head gasket

 

Me too man. You have been giving it a good amount of boost for quite a while and these heads are known to crush and loosen up over time.

[MattyP]

My head bolts failed as well but not in such a catastrophic fashion,

was there a death rattle before it went pop?

[Ralph Wiggum]

Overlay the firing order on the compression figures.... 

 

 

16's too young 

35's too old

24's just right 

Edited 21/05/17 11:10 AM by Ralph Wiggum

[molch]

1 hour ago, MattyP said:

My head bolts failed as well but not in such a catastrophic fashion,

was there a death rattle before it went pop?

 

nah I didnt hear any particular rattle but was screaming its head off (literally) so pretty hard to hear. 

 

what symptoms did yours have?? using coolant? what studs are the go without needing to drill anything out. I want to support circa 500 - 550kw @ 22-25psi to allow for future proofing.

[MattyP]

I went with the normal ARP head studs, Mine was using coolant ever slowly but frequently fully drained the overflow within 500kms

[FiftyOne]

2 hours ago, Ralph Wiggum said:

Overlay the firing order on the compression figures.... 

 

 

16's too young 

35's too old

24's just right