Head gasket swap do's, don't, tips, extras...?

[Clawhammer]

Ryan,

Its hard to say. If the video was taken while you had the boost leak..then it could have just been that. I have seen cars run in safe mode fromthe boost leak and it blow white smoke if the car had been sitting and itwas cold out side.

If you did find some coolant puddled on the piston then yea, it would be theHG. Sometimes it is hard to tell where the leak was coming from, but theyare still there.

We use to blow HG's on the race cars and they looked pristine. Its tough tosay....

when its something like this you just have to go through the motions andreplace what you can and hope it fixes it.

Sorry I couldn't be much more help .. its pretty tough to do or see muchmore without seeing the car in person.

thanks man,

Ken Harrison

[Clawhammer]

Do any of the SR headstuds protrude into a water jacket?

[the converted]

Nope, any new developments?

[Clawhammer]

Not really. I need help putting the head back on now that the block and head are all cleaned up. Gotta wait for either another roommate to come home or "friends" that want to come work on my car in <32F weather...what the deuce this is FL it's not supposed to get this cold.

I just wore a bunch of layers and worked on small things like replacing all my exhaust gaskets and all the rubber hangers, installed my wideband and ran the wires, etc. Put in one of my new samco hoses.

Check this out!



Suck it stupid nipple! I crushed it in a vice and had a local welder take care of the rest. Also got my bung welded to my test pipe as you can see.

A couple of pics from my photo documentary of this journey:

Clean block:

New HG in place:

[Zeller]

Okay, so you had a boost leak on the hotside of the IC. Depending on how your set-up is and how big the leak was you could have very easily over spun your turbo (your turbo doesn't know there is a leak, so it is still going to try and reach your set boost pressure) and blown the seals on it and now be leaking coolant into the exhaust side of the turbo and burning it off, white smoke. Had this happen on my evo: Had a bad throttle body leak and over spun the turbo and it just poured out white smoke! Change the HG and run the car again. If it is still smoking, I would say it is your turbo.

[Clawhammer]

Yes sir, this is exactly what I was wondering / worrying about in the back of my mind. I hope it's just the HG. Thanks!

[thenephilm]

I'm just about to do this over the weekend...looks like fun lol..

[Clawhammer]

Good luck...I should be up and running tomorrow. Got A LOT done today.

OOOOOH

Any tips on the timing chain tensioner? I can't get it in far enough to get the washers and nuts on, and if I push on it the hook falls off and it pops. Maybe I need someone else to push and hold it while I do the nuts?

[Sabot]

Never had this problem on both of my SR's. The tensioner always when in far enough to barely get the nut started. Make sure the tensioner is sitting right on the guide.

[the converted]

turn your crank a little clockwise to take any slack out and that should help.

[mRodiek]

hey claw i tried in your other thread but couldnt seem to find the info i was lookin for. did you get the reclocked adapter plates? and what elbow did you use?

[Clawhammer]

I replied in the other thread for ya.