burning coolant. need some help

[spower]

Ive been burning coolant once the engine gets up to good operating temps. There is no overheating, and theres no obvious loss of power, but i havent been running it at high engine sppeds. I took the head off and it looks like some of the holes for my coolant are clogged up. Are they just clogged or are they supposed to be shut like that?

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Theres also a lot of residue on the pistons and on the coolant tube that goes under the turbo. Is that burnt coolant? Too much coolant pressure? any other ideas?

The head gasket doesn't look to be in bad shape, so i'm kind of lost. Theres no shaft play on my 16g and it looks to be in good condition. The guy i bought it from said it's only a couple months old but I don't know how much I can trust him. ...so it shouldn't be the turbo, should it?

Thanks for any opinions guys.

 

[VTEC_lol]

just try to clean out the coolant jackets.

 

[spower]

thanks man. Should I try to clean the pistons? Theres also a bit of residue on the valves.

 

[luckynumber5]

It almost looks like some stop leak has been added to the system at some point in the engines life. Check the head surface and make sure its not warped.

As for cleaning the pistons, nothing beats water injection for a few miles

 

[1997_GSX]

You could just seafoam it when you get it back together to clean the piston tops.

 

[rizzzo29]

Yeah dont seafoam it. Please. Ever.

Seafoam is a hit and miss, pre existing problems in your engine can make the outcome very nasty.

My last car (4g64 8th gen galant) i had the engine seemed to be sluggish My compression checked out so i ran seafoam as an additive just the way you are supposed to. As soon as i turned it on i had lifter tick that was so loud it could have been played off as an insane knock. A mile up the road my car died, i towed it and and compression test showed 0-150-0-150. engine blown completely would have needed a full rebuild.

clean out the residue on the valves and having residue on the pistons is never a good sign, clean it off if you can but don't mark up the pistons at all

 

[bOOst JuNKy]

Yea, I never heard and good outcome from seafoam.... 8 dollar bottle of problems. I agree wit rizzzo, stay away from that junk.

 

[spower]

yeah. I'm not looking for a rebuild. I don't think my wallet would survive. especially on my DD. I got everything cleaned up and ready to put everything back together, but I went to reattach the turbo's oil line in the head and the bolt went in a little cockeyed. Now the first thread or two have my bolt going in at about a 30 degree angle. complete noob mistake Can I just drill out the first thread until it gets to the good thread? or am I in for a lot of pain?

 

[1997_GSX]

Lol I have used Seafoam on a lot of cars, as long as you follow the directions nothing bad will happen...

OP you can use Carb cleaner to clean the tops of the pistons if you want, It is a lot stronger than brake parts cleaner.

 

[Gamovr]

yeah. I'm not looking for a rebuild. I don't think my wallet would survive. especially on my DD. I got everything cleaned up and ready to put everything back together, but I went to reattach the turbo's oil line in the head and the bolt went in a little cockeyed. Now the first thread or two have my bolt going in at about a 30 degree angle. complete noob mistake Can I just drill out the first thread until it gets to the good thread? or am I in for a lot of pain?

as far as drilling it out i would recommend trying to just use a tap tool and straighten those threads out. The problem with drilling is you need to clean out that area afterwards to avoid getting metal shavings in your oil system :/

It may take a min or two to get it right but it'll be worth it if you can just straighten them out ya know?

It almost looks like some stop leak has been added to the system at some point in the engines life. Check the head surface and make sure its not warped.

As for cleaning the pistons, nothing beats water injection for a few miles

i just used some stop leak on my car and i noticed i just started burning coolant to! I have no idea what its coming from but its smoking quite a bit but its intermittent. i just ripped this head off for the 3rd time this month though *dont ask* but is there another way to clean the crud out? maybe a coolant flush?

 

[LiquidX]

Clean off the pistons, valves, and chamber the best you can. Better to take chunks off now then have seafoam take the chunks through you motor and turbo.

Might was to check the head for flatness as well and if you are going to do some good boosting then throw in ARP headstuds.

 

[XiKeiyaZI]

What's this about Seafoam killing engines? There's a complete thread here with nothing but good things about it and I run it through everything. Makes a world of difference.

I'm pretty sure that if your engine "blew up and needed a rebuild" that it was due to pre-existing issues. I can't really wrap my logic around " Seafoam blew my engine and left me with Zero Compression!" What'd it do, eat your Headgasket, melt your pistons rings, and bend your valves?

But yeah, just clean it up, check your surfaces, and figure out WHY you're getting coolant in there.

 

[LiquidX]

Kei, the reason why I said that is because seafoam or MCCC an take large deposits off that *can* cause issues with getting stuck in a valve or damaging the turbine. This is more of a concerns on bin mileage motors that have tons of nasty build up. Besides if the parts are there and easily hand cleaned why wouldn't you cleans them like that?

 

[XiKeiyaZI]

Kei, the reason why I said that is because seafoam or MCCC an take large deposits off that *can* cause issues with getting stuck in a valve or damaging the turbine. This is more of a concerns on bin mileage motors that have tons of nasty build up. Besides if the parts are there and easily hand cleaned why wouldn't you cleans them like that?

Wasn't directed at you bud. ;P

But I completely understand what you're getting at. I agreed, if you have the thing broken down this far, why not polish it up by hand? I never said to not do that.. I just suggested that I can't see Seafoam causing you to drop a cylinder. I don't wanna turn this into a Seafoam debate, there's already one, but when I got this GST it was sputtering and hesitating like crap. Ran half a can of the Foam through my intake, a quarter in the oil, and a quarter in the fuel... 007'd my Neighborhood, and 5 minutes later the car ran beautifully (disregarding the things that I needed to fix causing other issues.)

^^ That's all. But yes, definantly. If you have it broken down this far then clean it up right; By hand.

 

[spower]

Thanks for the help guys. I've got everything cleaned up and the head's back on. I did just put in some stopleak about a week before it started smoking. bad idea I'm guessing? There wee a couple of coolant journals that were completely blocked by black gunk and I'm guessing that's why it went.

put it on with cometic mls gasket with a small amount of high temp copper rtv and arp studs. hoping that will do well

 

[rimmbrme]

if your gonna build it back up might as well do it right and send it to the machine shop. save some money and do it the right way or you'll end up doing it twice and spending the same amount as if you got it done right the first time.

 

[luckynumber5]

Seafoam falls under the same category that a full transmission flush does. Its not a problem solver, its just something you can do to help the engine run good for a bit longer. Either one can kill an engine/transmission if you just throw it in something thats never really had any in depth maintenance.

 

[spower]

okay... got everything back together and running and took it out for a bit of a drive. I was fine for a while except that my temp gauge wasnt working. I stopped to check that out and restarted the engine without really do anything. The gauge started reading again, but as soon as I got back on the road and got boost up a little bit, there was a big pop and the engine started running very rough. It wouldnt idle and if i tryed to run it, it would sputter really heavily like there was a lot of back pressure, but i have three inch turbo back... what did i do now? and its dark, so i cant see much smoke, but I think its there and the exhaust still smells like coolant

so.... now that it's light outside and I can actually see, I found out that a coupler fr the intercooler piping slipped off. I put that back on and now it seems to be running fine, but still smoking a little.