How to know if im running rich or blown head gasket?

[Hectorb25]

Im new to DSM and i need a little help, my 1995 gst is stock and everytime i floor it or rev it pretty high it starts to throw out white/grey smoke with a distinct smell , i believe its either im running rich or blown head gasket , i did a radiator flush about a week ago and i checked the liquid now and it has gone down a lot , what can be the problem ?

 

[rlacasse1]

Probably the head gasket given the whitish smoke. Do a leak down test to find out for sure. Or do it the poor mans way and top off your radiator then crank the car with the radiator cap off. If it shoots coolant out then you know the head gasket is shot.

 

[Hectorb25]

do you have any idea how to do the leak down test yourself? or is it possible to do it ourself ?

 

[rlacasse1]

You can do it yourself if you have a compressor and the leak down tester.

Search on here for leak down test and you will find threads describing exactly how to do it.

 

[onefast2gdsm]

Does the smoke smell like gas? Or does it have a sweet smell?

 

[Hectorb25]

to me it honestly smells like gas, everyone that smelled it has said that i smells like gas also but what caught me attention the most was the down level of the new coolant i place in the radiator.

 

[cdone]

I'm going through the same thing, and I'm un sure if it's a blown thermostat. Or head gasket, but see I have a thicker head gasket. But my coolant has been burning up as well. Its only the second time I've notice but it's been over the course of two days. So I'm gonna check and make sure all the air is out off the lines

 

[Hectorb25]

im going to buy another bottle of coolant and if it keeps running out my best bet that i have read to not waste the labor money on changing a head gasket will be using the blue devil sealent .

 

[onefast2gdsm]

Check your rad cap. I was losing coolant, only to find out it was POURING out of the overflow bottle due to loss of pressure from a bad rad cap. As for the exhaust, if it only smells like gas it probably is running rich. Check o2 sensor voltages. I also had a bad headgasket and couldn't find it until I went to do a turbo swap. That turned into a whole car restore . It was leaking behind the turbo.

 

[Hectorb25]

i am going to change the 02 sensors soon i just bought em , hopefully that will fix something if the smoke doesnt stop i will have to change the head gasket . has anyone here done that themselves? just asking to see how much trouble it is..

 

[obsidian]

Swap out the radiator cap first and then if you haven't already, check the thermostat. You could just be getting air out of the system over time but the smoke could be from a multitude of things. Try a leakdown test as stated above.

 

[Hectorb25]

i will buy a new cap tommrow but what would that do ? and by checking the thermostat do you guys mean the gasket or the actual thermostat itself? sorry big newb here

 

[obsidian]

gasket with a bad seal will not let the system maintain the proper operating pressures. The thermostat is busted will cause it to overheat at certain times.

 

[Hectorb25]

the car isnt over heating at any point but its always good to change it either way i saw on autozone their just 15 dollars so ill change that and the gasket as soon as i can , thank you very much i will write back for the updates on the car , appreciate the help guys