SR Redtop spitting and sputtering, help plz :/

[zachw]

oookay, so im just gonna come out and say my 240 started giving me problems last thursday. i decided to just park it at my house and do a little research. earlier that day where i noticed the problem i pulled onto a main road around where i live following a friend to work and tried to catch up to him and my car started to jump and skip..consistenly. almost as if i lost all compression in a single piston. considering my coolant kept getting lower and lower even though it wasnt leaking onto the ground, i figured it was leaking into the oil pan. i pulled it into my garage after put-put-ing it home and drained the oil as well as the coolant (oil didnt really look like it had any coolant in it, which stumped me) took the intake manifold off, the exhaust manifold off, and just a couple of hours ago took the head off. i figured it would be a cracked/blown head gasket because, honestly because that problem did sound a ton like a head gasket issue. i already have a cometic 1.01mm that came in the mail not too long ago. i didnt see any problems whatsoever with the stock head gasket. is it possible that even though it doesnt "look" damaged it actually is? any other ideas to why it was skipping and jumping so much? it hasnt ever done this to me before and its my daily driver so i have to get it back on the road asap. btw, now that he head is off, what all do i need to have done to it before i put the new gasket on; machine work-wise i mean. i've heard its a good idea to get it shaved, but i dont want to do that so much that the valves hit the piston heads..that would make for a fun time. i hope someone out there has an idea :/ thanks in advance.

-Zach-

[PyR0NiAk]

Did you do a compression test before pulling the head? That would have been the smart choice. Your problem could have been as simple as a spark or fuel issue, but now you'll never know.(Unless the problem still exists when you put it back together.) The coolant you were losing could have been leaking onto the motor or exhaust and burning off. This would explain why you were losing it and couldn't find it. As far as the machine shop goes, you'll need to take and have the head decked. Keep in mind a stock head gasket is 1.01mm. Using a stock size head gasket on a motor that has had the head decked is kind of risky. I'd ditch the cometic head gasket and go with a Cosworth 1.1. Cometics have a bad reputation for a reason.

[USMCgetsome]

since u have it apart take the head to get inspected and decked before u put on the new hg.

[zachw]

thanks guys. I'll throw the motor back together after having the head decked and let you guys know how it goes. hopefully it won't give me any issues but more than likely it will :/

[zachw]

motors put back together (FINALLY) runs like a charm!!

[lilpiton]

good to kno, what ended up to be the problem?
What did the machine shop do to the head?

[s13drifter88]

cometics have a bad rep? ive seen just as many tomei and hks mls gasket failures as i have cometics. people 95% of the time dont have the block surface machined and thats what causes the failure. mls isnt as soft and giving as the stock gasket, the require a smoother more precisely machined surface, u just see more cometic failures seeing as how people buy $100 cometics over $250 hks and tomei gaskets