Coolants Dissapearing??

[IMR2T]

Cheers guys will order a Sniff Test kit and see what's it says.

Not got the cash just now to do a proper rebuild but I could drop in a new headgasket easy enough until I can afford pistons etc.

Will kp you posted.

[IMR2T]

Sniff test done. After 5mins it was still blue??

Now I'm confused...


So to recap

-I been losing 1/4-1/2ltr of coolant each wk.

-Piston slap kicks in at 2500revs but nothing above or below

-Car runs lumpy between 800-1000revs.

-I've got a slight rattle inside my BOV and a similar noise from my IC area


Now thinking Ive got a dodgy coolant hose somewhere and possibly my spark plugs are pumped or I have a vacuum leak somewhere...??

[IMR2T]

Refilled the coolant, didnt work.

I was speaking to guys on MR2OC and everyones pretty sure the hg is away.

Will be stripping it down tomorrow to get the head off and have it skimmed.

[bobhatton]

Refilled the coolant, didnt work.

I was speaking to guys on MR2OC and everyones pretty sure the hg is away.

Will be stripping it down tomorrow to get the head off and have it skimmed.

Do not just have the head skimmed, I have never yet found one that needs doing, and it will raise the compression ratio not what you want on a turbo engine.
It is knock that damages the head gasket, so if you do not stop that your pistons will be next to go.

[bobhatton]

-Piston slap kicks in at 2500revs but nothing above or below

If you have piston slap you are going to need a rebore and new pistons

[IMR2T]

Hey Bob, cheers for your replies!

I'm just waiting on the rain to stop as I'm working on the car outside(no garage).

I'm really surprised I won't need a skim. I thought it was common practice if an engines hg went you'd skim it. Glad I asked now!


So if I get the occasional pinking noise over the last weeks worth of driving I'm going to be needing new pistons yeah?

I was planning on

-Rev 3 hg
-Rev 3 injectors
-Stand alone ecu
-New pistons due to pinking

Would this be ideal for a reliable 350hp or am I pushing components to their limit?

[bobhatton]

Hey Bob, cheers for your replies!

I'm just waiting on the rain to stop as I'm working on the car outside(no garage).

I'm really surprised I won't need a skim. I thought it was common practice if an engines hg went you'd skim it. Glad I asked now!


So if I get the occasional pinking noise over the last weeks worth of driving I'm going to be needing new pistons yeah?

I was planning on

-Rev 3 hg
-Rev 3 injectors
-Stand alone ecu
-New pistons due to pinking

Would this be ideal for a reliable 350hp or am I pushing components to their limit?

You will not hear pinking, the knock sensor will stop that via the ECU.
You said piston slap, that is not the same as pinking.

What you do with a head is check that it is flat yourself. If you take it to a machine shop they will tell you it needs work, that is how they make there money.

[IMR2T]

Ah, I though piston slap was what you heard when the engine was pinking, my bad.

Im kinda working this fault out as I go tbh as I want to learn more about these engines but I searched youtube and found this video hence why I thought I was listening to 'pinking'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIOdS7XbHys



I get you, would I use a metal rule/feeler gauge to check it or is there a better way?

[IMR2T]

Turns out I was right, Id caught my hg starting to fail.

Ok, so my machine shop convinced me to skim 1/4 of 1mm(Bob don't shoot me!) I'll get it back tomorrow and put everything back together this wks end.

Here's some pics, prob was just at the right handside of the bottom cylinder but I'll not be using that hg sealant again, it's nearly blocked up every water passage

[acf8181]

looks familiar (though mine is NA)....am rebuilding now!

had same symptoms as you

[IMR2T]

Sorry to hear that!

I have wondered what the actual engine differemces would be between na and turbo.

[2mad]

Bad times mate that sealant did a number on you

[killerferret666]

Turns out I was right, Id caught my hg starting to fail.

Ok, so my machine shop convinced me to skim 1/4 of 1mm(Bob don't shoot me!) I'll get it back tomorrow and put everything back together this wks end.

You won't regret that, I did not have mine skimmed / refaced after first head fit as mechanic said ideally not and read up comments on here to ideally not. Metal headgasket was fitted and the engine ate water so had to have it all off and refaced and all refitted which when redone didn't leak and did the job fine.

May not want to lower compression but it's not the end of the world, when we tried listening to knock only got some after some heat soak in traffic, that's it.

[IMR2T]

Bad times mate that sealant did a number on you

Telling me mate, look at it, its going to take me a couple of hours just to clean it all out!

[IMR2T]

Turns out I was right, Id caught my hg starting to fail.

Ok, so my machine shop convinced me to skim 1/4 of 1mm(Bob don't shoot me!) I'll get it back tomorrow and put everything back together this wks end.

You won't regret that, I did not have mine skimmed / refaced after first head fit as mechanic said ideally not and read up comments on here to ideally not. Metal headgasket was fitted and the engine ate water so had to have it all off and refaced and all refitted which when redone didn't leak and did the job fine.

May not want to lower compression but it's not the end of the world, when we tried listening to knock only got some after some heat soak in traffic, that's it.

Fair enough, thats good to hear. I spoke to the engineer that runs the machine shop about upping the power and whether I should go for a thicker hg etc after the skim and he said not to worry as its a tiny amount off.

Suppose we'll find out soon enough, ha!