Possible blown head gasket?

Nissan 300ZX technical discussion forum: Maintenance, performance, installations, modifications, how-to's and troubleshooting.
SwappedZed
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Mar 09, 2015 11:47 am
Car: 1994 300zx TT
370cc injectors
Z1 SMIC
Ashspec ecu

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Hey guys, hopefully someone can shed some insight or point me in the right direction, but last night I did a fourth gear pull when I was getting onto the freeway and everything seemed good. The car was pulling hard and didn't feel any different. None of my gauges (aftermarket gauges and stock temp. gauge) didn't suggest any over heating and my oil pressure was good. Right before I was going to let off, the car lost power and shut off on its own and there was a giant trail of smoke behind me. Once I got the car to the side of the freeway, I opened my hood and it looked like coolant had sprayed everywhere. It looked like it was coming fro the radiator neck/cap, but the cap was still on. Underneath the car, I could see coolant dripping, but the smoke coming out of the exhaust didn't really have a sweet aroma too it and it was white smoke. This morning I checked the oil cap and there was milky oil, so I thought head gasket for sure, but when I checked my oil dipstick, that oil looked perfectly normal. So could It be my head gasket or does it seem like there is something else going on?


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Taleek
Posts: 32
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2015 6:06 pm
Car: 1990 Nissan 300ZX Twin Turbo
Location: San Diego, CA

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It could definitely be the head gasket, I would suggest doing a compression test and pull all the codes from the ecu.

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NolimitZ32
Posts: 7042
Joined: Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:07 am
Car: 91 AG2 2+0 TTMT swap/E39 BMW 540i6/E53 4.6is Dinan S3
Location: Houston, TX

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Compression test wont tell you much in the way of a blown head gasket. What you need to do is first perform a block test on the car, you can loan the tool from any autozone, it comes with the fluid. This will tell you if you have any combustion gasses in the coolant. Sounds to me like one of your turbos may have packed up. If the block test is inconclusive next I would pull the thermostat, putt the waterpipe back on and run some pressure through the cooling system with water.


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