Yeah, I had a mystery misfire that was traced back to that. But generally, the wiring looms are starting to deteriorate with age and heat. Might even be a dodgy injector plug

Further developments.. Went to start the car this arvo in the garage, no start, something stopping it from cranking. I pull out plug 5, crank it bang out shoots what appears to be water. The car has sat for 24 hours in the same spot, not running.

Clean it up chuck the plug back in and listen to the injectors with a borrowed stethoscope, they sound fine. Clicking away the same on each cylinder.

While I'm doing this the garage has filled up with thick steam, the photos don't really do it justice. I suspect water is in the fuel as I had it running with the rad cap off and no signs of any issues related to head gasket... But why 5 only? When it stops raining I will have to pull the fuel filter and see if anything comes out. I've also got 40l of e85 in jerrys of the same potentially contaminated fuel I can check out.

Looks like coolant? Doesn't look ideal either way 😬

It very well could be yes although compression good and no signs of it blowing back when I had the rad cap off. Might need to pressure test the cooling system and do some more checks. With my great luck, it wouldn't surprise me haha

Pretty sure its the head gasket now, water in the cylinder again and pressure test on the cooling system appears to fill the cylinder up fairly quickly. Perhaps head studs and a good gasket would have been a good idea when the engine was out.

If my theory was right about water in the fuel, I'd have issues and miss fire on all cylinders.

I like to work on the car for enjoyment and this isn't very enjoyable any more. Might need to lock the garage up for a few weeks and cool off haha

What heAdGaSkEt did you use?

 

Yeah man if it's giving you the sh*ts then take a break. Nothing wrong with that.

It was the original gasket that was on the engine. The gassy had something like 120,000km on it. I really didnt think it would give me any trouble boy was I wrong.

I'm pretty sure it'll be a single shim gasket. Get another one, slap some sealant muck on it and farken send it with another set of stock bolts. Will cost ya stuff all.

I will do something like that on the cheap mate

All the other surrounding gaskets are new so won't stretch for a vrs

So I've been gearing up to pull the head off over the easter weekend. I've ordered the head gasket and studs from Dominator. I've got a really bad gut feeling that the head is cracked. The way water is leaking into the cylinder and no issue between cylinders gives me this feeling. Time will tell and if that is the case, I have the head from my busted turbo engine to use. I plan to turn the car around same day if the head is flat, I'll be doing old school straight edge to check.

I'm really thinking now is the time to fit the stock actuator back on and run lower boost. I know you guys are all about the 1000s of rwkw but huge power was never my goal and it appears reliability is suffering. 8-10 pounds should still see healthy results on e85 and will let the trans and everything else live a little longer. Then I will pull the pump out make sure everything is right, run a relay and hopefully get away with not needing to upgrade with a surgery tank etc.

See how that turns out haha

Few weeks ago I ended up getting the tyres swapped over and fitted onto the 17 inch territory steel wheels.. Hub caps came from the states and look absolutely horrendous. Just the way I like it.