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Oil mixed in coolant immediately

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bmxunderground

15+ Year Contributor
217
4
Dec 11, 2007
Bowling Green, Kentucky
Build: ported polished head (purchased from user)
ARP head studs
Cometic HG

I put everything together and bolted the ARPs 25-30-50-85 (moly lube)

after only five to ten minutes of running on initial start up, I let the car cool down, came back after work to top off the coolant and when I squeezed the upper radiator hose, oil came up to the top of the pipe. Also noticed a small amount of coolant dripping from the bottom left area you see in the pic below.

I purchased this fully built long block from another user who said he blew a head gasket. After tear down, I believe that was the cause. there was coolant mixed in the oil, all throughout the engine. There was however, no oil in the coolant from what I could tell. Now I have cleaned everything up, assembled the engine with new gasket + different head and the opposite was happening immediately, oil in the coolant but not vice versa.

Likely suspects:

-error in ARP torquing
-flawed HG
-warped head
-block surface uneven or warped
-cracked water/oil jacket bleeding into eachother
-dowel fit issue.

My two main concerns were a crack in the block, but how common is that? and the other was that the OEM surface of the block was not smooth or flat enough.

If there were a crack in the block big enough to transfer oil in just at five minutes, wouldn't that be visible? the car didn't even have time to fully warm up yet to expand a crack I would think. Second, the block surface seems to be semi porous not smooth, shouldn't it be as smooth as the head?

I'm really hoping its anything other than a crack. wisemen chime in now possibly? give me a "that happened to me" story, to steer my hunting before I waste more time and money.



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OP, you have some good ideas as to what the problem could be. I would check the block and head's decks with a straightedge immediately. If the surface is really damaged, you might have it decked, or replace the block.

The block could be cracked if it were run really hot at some point. Generally cracks close as the surrounding material expands from heat. The leak might be at its worst while the engine is cold. The only way to know for sure is to have the block magnafluxed.

The only thing to do about the head studs, headgasket and dowels is replace them.


Likely suspects:

-error in ARP torquing
-flawed HG
-warped head
-block surface uneven or warped
-cracked water/oil jacket bleeding into eachother
-dowel fit issue.
 
Is the head pulled alreadY? If so, give us a pic of the top of the block (showing all 4 holes) and a pic of the headgasket. If possible, take pick of the headgasket before you take it off the block. Also, did you have the head planed? Or at least checked?

And you're sure you cleaned everything up, right?

MB
 
guys, answer me this. I just got back in from inspecting the block again against the 6 other blocks I have and correct me if I'm wrong but I think this block has been sleeved possibly??? if you look in my picture at the blue arrow, there is ring sticking up about a half a millimeter. its the same around all 4 holes. for those of you who have gapped your piston rings yourself, this "ring" looks like that, there is acutally a point where the ring comes back together at a gap.

my other 6 spare blocks here DO NOT have this. They are also smooth and this one is semi porus on the deck. Can anyone confirm what this is at all?

I am trying to get my hands on a digital camera, the iphone shots aren't clear enough.

I've seen hondas sleeved with heavy duty race press ins but nothing like this if indeed it is some sort of sleeve.

I'll have some pics up in a minute when I find my camera.

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Aha, that's what had me confused on your first pic. So that is a pic of your block in the first post. Yeah, that appears to be a sleeved block.

Now the only reason you would sleeve one of our blocks, would be if the cylinder was so bad (say out of round after a .040 cut and you didn't want to try .060 - or couldn't do it) that you wanted to basically "rebuild" the cylinder. Other than that, there would be no advantage. Unfortunately, a "Honda" guy who has learned to "get new sleeves" on a high performance build, could have easily made this decision for your block, thinking that it would add horsepower or strength LOL. Whatever the reason, I would strongly suspect that aspect of the block being your culprit. ;)

Now in addition, from your original pic (and it may be the shadowing, that's another reason I wanted a full pic), you appear to have low spots between the cylinders that would cause compression transfer. So that may even be the reason they attempted to sleeve this

Since you have other blocks then at least you have something to work with. IMO that block is toast. I mean if, as you say, there is any dimension sticking up from the face of the block, they didn't even sleeve it properly. That needs to be a perfectly flat area.

And since we are talkking about a "built" engine, do tell what piston's you are supposed to have in there.

MB
 
it could be o ringed
 
there are JE pistons that are 8.8:1 and eagle rods. running ACL bearings.

After some more research it appears that it is O ringed. I've read up that the metal or MLS head gaskets are not reccomended, that I should be using copper or composite. What are your thoughts? could the block be mixing all the coolant together with oil because of a poor seal with the raised O ring? I almost hate to ask that, but I'm simply an eclipse enthusiast mechanic.

(I do have an 1hr 45min 420a teardown record however)
 
I was just saying, I'm not a professional, but I have seven years experience with the 420a and 4g63 eclipse. I'm not lying when I say I can take the cars apart blind folded. But although I can disassemble the entire car down to a pile of bolts I'm still not a qualified engine builder, I still use a helms manual. My fastest track time was only ever 12's. I hope to change that in just a few short weeks.

My profile says N/T because its a 420a N/A w/turbo. Also sometimes I get lazy when filling out my profile, lets be honest, tuners has many more fields to fill in than most other sites, LOL.

So back to the subject: composite or copper gasket a good idea with a stainless steel O ringed block?

I'm back and forth between the machine shop all day working on a 4g63 rebuild too so if someone wants to text or call me, please feel free!! I'll add the contents to this post if it results in a resolution. Thanks!
 
My profile says N/T because its a 420a N/A w/turbo.
Ah, that's why I was wondering about the pistons. Had me confused a little.

So back to the subject: composite or copper gasket a good idea with a stainless steel O ringed block?

Ok, your machine shop buddies are gonna love this answer, LOL.

But first, a couple of things; the porous look of your block face is due to the previous composite gasket that was on there. So they felt that composite was the way to go with this build originally (not unusual for an O-ringed set-up. As well as copper). I still do not like the look of the area between your cylinders. It may be just shadow (hard to tell from a pic), but I have reservations about that being a good seal. You really should have the machine shop look at that.

IMO, O-ringing is overkill (but you are there right now so, there you go :thumb:) but the rules are that you should pull the wire everytime you do a headgasket (I have seen some get away with this, but certainly with the history of this set-up, you should put in new wire). You are talking about steel wire; ok.

Well, at our machine shop (no I don't work there. I use "we" as a generic term meaning my buddies and I go there and try different crap) we (as in my buddies) actually use the MLS with steel wire (be sure to know that we are talking about 4g63 in this case. I haven't done this with 420a. But that's inconsequential). This is run on some pretty powerful cars. Not super high power, but I would imagine more than you're going to have to worry about.

The set-up is, steel wire .010 proud of the deck face with an OEM (or cometic) MLS. Yeah, I know same metals etc. but it does work. BUT very important in all of this is that the faces are straight and clean. They must be flat.

Now with that being said, the "rule of thumb" is to use either composite or copper with a steel wire. IF you were going to use an MLS headgasket then your should use copper wire. Again "rule of thumb". But we have done steel on MLS multiple times with great results.

So copper or composite would be the normal application. Your choice, but regardless of all that is to be sure that your surfaces are flat.

MB
 
just got back from the machine shop. they said o ringing is an old school technique and that its not reccomended for a street car. They said leaky head gaskets are common with this set up.

I've got a few choices here after talking to them and I kinda wanna talk it out here.

Option 1: leave the block as is, run composite gasket

Option 2: Deck block .020 and buy a custom gasket to make up the difference

Option 3: pull out steel O ring and replace with annealed copper wire and reuse the cometic gasket I just used.


opinions??

Update: decided to try option 1 first. Just ordered a composite graphite headgasket. We'll see how that seals up hopefully by Saturday and I'll report back. If it doesn't then I'm going to option 2 and ditching option 3 all together.
 
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Update: decided to try option 1 first. Just ordered a composite graphite headgasket. We'll see how that seals up hopefully by Saturday and I'll report back. If it doesn't then I'm going to option 2 and ditching option 3 all together.
Did that option include changing the steel wire? Did you check the deck of that block?

MB
 
I was advised to leave it as is and try the composite gasket. Since the rings were steel they don't compress much if at all I've been told. I am having the block checked for flatness right before I install it. If the block isn't flat, I've got two other OEM type rebuilds I can use it on for some non performance applications.

I'm hoping this works though. Running a few weeks will get me out from under the current workload and back into some free time to toy around.

I've got a 4g63 being built I have to drop in Sunday, two n/a builds for friends/customers and some tuning to do on a JDM integra, plus just bought another 99 n/a for 300.00 to get running.

Bullet I wish I had you around here man. I'm doing a fully built N/A Nitrous engine for my show car and I could use some pointers!
 
Bullet I wish I had you around here man. I'm doing a fully built N/A Nitrous engine for my show car and I could use some pointers!
Heh heh, so do I. With the middle of winter here, I could use some warmer weather.

Send me a plane ticket and I'll gladly build the engine for you :p.

MB
 
I'm hoping this head gasket gets here before this foot of snow my weather is talking about. So winter time hasn't quite taken its grip off KY, just yet. Bout 6 to 8 weeks before we see good warm days.
 
id go option 3 with a new gasket
 
I'm so torn as to what to do that I'm getting a headache, LOL. I went back to my machine shop to deliver a few heads and blocks I'm having worked and mentioned what I was going to do: graphite headgasket on orings that are already in the block.

Guy looked at me and said "Look, you came here for answers I'm going to give you this straight. You can not, and will not be able to run an oringed block on a street car. unless they put the oring in the block OUTSIDE the fire ring on the composite gasket, your block WILL mix oil and coolant indefinately, no questions asked."

I just got my gasket in the mail, so I'm going outside in the 8 inches of snow we have as of now, to measure exactly where the orings land on my new graphite gasket.
 
Guy looked at me and said "Look, you came here for answers I'm going to give you this straight. You can not, and will not be able to run an oringed block on a street car.
I'll give you a little something straight too, LOL. This is just not true. It is currently being done many times over here in Ct. Of course, maybe its the special weather we have here or something :hmm:. This is actually just a silly statement by the machine shop.

unless they put the oring in the block OUTSIDE the fire ring on the composite gasket, your block WILL mix oil and coolant indefinately, no questions asked."
This part has me even more confused for the obvious reasons. I just don't get it. I must be missing something in his descriptor. Are they aware that the ring is supposed to compress into the firering of the headgasket as you torque it down? It does not seal between the head and the block. General rule of thumb is to have the 0-ring no more than 10% as tall as your headgasket (obviously, in my previous example we use a little more than the general rule of thumb)

I'm guessing that bottom line is that he does not want to do it. Too bad you weren't up here. My shop would take care of that for you. I guess you now have another choice to put into the mix. Go to another shop.

MB
 
bullet, I just got the block back into the basement, haven't installed anything yet. I measured the height of the oring off the block to the best of my ability and it appears to be .010 in height.

the composite gasket seems to be a flimsy enough material to compress without issue. The fire ring is the only ring on this gasket lined with actual metal. wish I could have gotten a better one lining all holes. I'm definitely going with some spray a gasket too.

At this point I don't feel bad trying this for sake of experimentation. For record, I'll go back and measure the gasket thickness as well and see if I'm within the 10%

I am not mentioning it to the machine shop though, LOL. I know they'll take me for an idiot and probably add a 10% stupidity fee to my bills.
 
bullet, I just got the block back into the basement, haven't installed anything yet. I measured the height of the oring off the block to the best of my ability and it appears to be .010 in height.
Well that sounds good

the composite gasket seems to be a flimsy enough material to compress without issue. The fire ring is the only ring on this gasket lined with actual metal.
Not really unusual for these.

For record, I'll go back and measure the gasket thickness as well and see if I'm within the 10%

Keep in mind that the 10% is just a "rule of thumb". We already know that the dimension we use (for the MLS and Steel set-up) is more like 20%. Your headgasket will probably measure in the .050 range (probably south of that).

BTW, the o-ring choices and matches and info/dimensions/charcteristics are often "secrets" to others. Some shops/racers will keep that info close to their chest (like cam specs or port jobs) because they don't want to share their experience with others. Like that info I just gave you about MLS and steel rings? Well, I probably shouldn't have put that out there, so don't tell anybody. We'll just keep this between you and I :shhh: ;)

I am not mentioning it to the machine shop though, LOL. I know they'll take me for an idiot and probably add a 10% stupidity fee to my bills.
Yeah, its one thing to let the idiots think of you as an idiot, its another to let them charge you for it.

No, no, I'm sure these guys are probably fine guys. As often happens they may not see eye to eye with others on some specific subjects.

MB

Oh yeah, I'm still concerned about that block being true flat (from the pic). Hopefully they checked it or something.
 
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