UHOH! HELP!

[drifter_for_life06]

Alright heres the thing

My car has driven SPECTACULAR ever since i got it back early December. I went out today, to pick up my sister like 20minutes away, about halfway through my drive, i notice a plume of white smoke in my rear view....okay, fine.

The smoking stops, then my temp needle pegs out the H, and eventually goes what would be a notch or two PAST! the final H mark. White smoke like crazy.

Parked the car and shut it off. No liquid dripping anywhere, no boiling sound.....

Here's what gets me.

At the stop light put it in neutral and the revs sat aroudn 1200-1500

Then they would go to ~2000 w/o me hitting the gas.

It does this everytime the clutch is in or its in neutral!

Please help!

[574-240sx]

blown headgasket possibly

[drifter_for_life06]

im praying its not the HG, as the entire reason i got teh SR, was my KA blew it.

[NIGHTfall_240sx]

ehh.. so just go buy another sr :P

...or better yet, just fix this one heh

[mmashburn]

i would be pulling out the compression tester

[drifter_for_life06]

dont got one....

where can i pick one up?

[smokey240sx]

you could buy it at any parts stores advance auto, pep boys, autozone or napa. It cost about $40 and it looks like a gauge with a hose. I think its your headgasket that blew. sorry man i know how you must feel.

[drifter_for_life06]

yea this totally blows

KA HG blows in Novemember, get the SR up and running for a month and it blows a HG

well, i guess on a good note, this prompts me to get a thicker HG so i can run more boost safer in the future :/

[drifter_for_life06]

Someone said I should check for bubbles in my oil

never done that

also i ehard itmight be a blown piston ring?

[MS180SX]

Someone said I should check for bubbles in my oil

never done that

also i ehard itmight be a blown piston ring?

i never heard of bubbles, but if you check your oil and see a whitish milk shake, then its safe to say you blew something. Probably the head gasket. Just take off the oil cap and look inside of it.. IF theres any water or antifrezze in your oil, the white foamy milkshake should stick under the cap.

[S14tat]

there are a few ways you can check for a blown head gasket. one is if your coolant level is really low that means its being either burnt up in the combustion chamber or is leaking somewhere.

another way to check is the bubble method. when you start the car when its cold, leave the radiator cap off, if you have a blown headgasket it would have alot of air pockets inside your system and you would see bubbles coming out.

and the third way is to run a compression test. if you have 2 numbers that are very similar in low numbers thats probrably the spot that blew out. to make sure its not bad rings, you pour a cap full of oil inside each cylinder so it would help seal the ring up. if the numbers are still low then its most likely a bad head gasket.

oh yeah don't forget to do the test right after the engine warms up so the rings are expanded to its full size and to do the test at WOT.

[drifter_for_life06]

ill be doing that probably monday, ill be too hungover tomorrow

thanks guys

[drifter_for_life06]

update:

Took off the Rad. cap and there was no fluid in the top "row" i saw the bare metal. The over-flow tank is filled a bit past the "Max" line.

Took out the dipstick, oil is dark and no bubbles or milkyish coloration

Took off cap to valve cover, everything looks good.

Guess last thing to do is get a comp. tester

[spider_slayer]

i'm thinking its gonna be the head gasket. if you blew your rings you would be burning oil and blowing blue smoke. did you smell anything out of the ordinary? smell will tell you exactally what your burning.

one other thing to check would be the manifold gasket. that could also cause intermitant white smoke.

[Neil]

yea white smoke is antifreeze...

start the car with the radiator cap off and let it warm up. Gun the throttle with your hand a couple times, enough to spool up enough to let the BOV open and see if any gasses come out of the radiator. This can tell you if combustion gasses are leaking into the water jackets around the cylinders.

Blown head gaskets can have different symptoms. Typically it'll idle at normal temp for days but overheat as soon as you drive away and your coolant will quickly turn a dark color and smell fumey. Or it'll chomp antifreeze and burn it up and spew it out the tailpipe. Or it'll go bad between two cylinders and the compression just goes back and forth between them. If that last scenario is the case, you would feel a significant and repetative lump, similar to a misfiring spark plug.

Top up the antifreeze (to the bottom of the neck) and try that. It could have just been a nasty air pocket... Heat is what pressurizes the coolant system, not the water pump, so the pump might have hit an air pocket and not having the antifreeze circulate meant it stayed in one spot and the heat squeezed some coolant into the cylinders. not that that's much better though.
Modified by Neil at 12:54 AM 1/2/2006

[drifter_for_life06]

if it was just an air pocket would it have still smoked white?

also, what manifold gasket? the intake mani or exhaust mani?

im just tryn to figure as much out as i can, before i get myself into a project i cant afford to finish (this is my only car)

[bruinbear714]

Sounds like a blown headgasket... the reason why you don't see bubbling coolant/water is because there is no more coolant left to bubble!

[drifter_for_life06]

theres def some left, lol

a friend is doing a comp test on his Spec-V tomorrow, so im gonna do one on the SR,

Ill post the numbers

[The Mic]

The most important thing is that they are all similar pressure ratings..

as in, you wouldnt want1 at 1902 at 1953 at 1204 at 190

Symptoms of a blown head gasket are: reduced power, white or blue smoke out the tailpipe, oil in the coolant or coolant in the oil. You can check for a blown head gasket by removing the coolant cap and watching the coolant level when you add the compressed air. If it rises or you see bubbles, you have a leaking head gasket.

btw,

Dumbass

[drifter_for_life06]

dumbass eh?

yea i know what the readings SHOULD be, i just hope well screw it i know im gonna be disappointed, o well

[ILikeMy240sx]

oh and if its a blown HG you will see two low numbers in adjacent cylinders...

Drain your oil out and check it.

[Neil]

not necessarily. only if the bridge between the two blew out. on my KA at 170,000 miles it leaked from cyl-2 to a water jacket and caused minor compression loss but made the motor overheat.

[drifter_for_life06]

one should/could still be lower and be apparently due to the HG correct?

[drifter_for_life06]

okay

my stepdad is off work on STD(short term disability) and he said he looked at my car today.

he said "Your lower readiator hose was disconnected partailly and you had no coolant. Your thermostat is probably stuck closed and thats why tis over heating"

I trust his word in that, but wtf, why would it smoke white?

[Red coupe]

maybe he is right, and thats why you blew a gasket?If you have an air comrressor see if you cant rent a leak down tester from a local autoparts store. Like miike was saying it will let you pressurize the cylinder to see how much pressure it will hold, and will let you listen for where the leak is. Pluss you don't have to have the engine running (drip some oil in the cyliner to help seal the rings....)

[drifter_for_life06]

i own neither the compressor or tester.....

i went to AAp and picked up a stant thermo and ill throw it in tomorrow. If it doesnt work, well then back to plan A with teh Apexi HG and Phase2 RAS

[Neil]

call the guys who did your swap and holler at them for potentially ruining your motor cuz they didnt tighten a radiator hose.

That's the NEWBiest thing ive ever heard.

just because coolant leaked out doesnt mean your t-stat is bad. or did you mean radiator cap? i didnt know stant makes thermostats. i never buy their crap.

Tighten that hose, Double check everything you can get at, Fill it up, Drive around, if it overheats or runs like **** THEN start thinking about a bad head gasket.

[drifter_for_life06]

yea stant makes thermo's

my father (whom i talk to MAYBE once or twice a year) called last night and asked how my car was

i told him and he flipped out and asked for the shops number, he said if it IS the HG or something else he's gonna raise hell and my car will get fixed.....

we shall see what happens

[Neil]

yeah too bad it's difficult to get warrantee'd work done on illegal engines... I hope everything works out in your favor. Maybe its just a fluke thing and everything's fine. Do like I said and fill up on antifreeze (50/50 mix) and see if it overheats again or makes noise or is way down on power or doesnt feel smooth or something first before having your dad get all hot headed with the shop that did the install.

[drifter_for_life06]

yea he said he isnt gonna call unless i call him and say it isnt the thermo and low antifreeze

im praying tonight