Crapola Blew Head Gasket

well i was on my way home today from work and was trying to get home quick and was pulling in 3rd when all of a sudden car stated smoking and sputering. pulled in the median and try starting car again and with the hood poped and noticed a antizreeze and oil smell and smoke coming out from under the hood and out the exhauste. Im not sure but one of my friends had a v8 that did the same thing and it was a head gasket. Hopefully this is all thats wrong with mine. Any ideas. I havnt tore it down yet, going to wait till tomorrow after work, have no tools here and its real late and im sick. Also if it is the head gasket, how hard is it to change and any tips or links for info on it and cost.

its not complicated and doesnt really take any special tools. but it will take some time to do. was it overheating? search here for bad headgasket to find some other ways to tell but in general if its the headgasket it will probably do some or most of these.
overheat
white steam out the exhaust all the time
bubbles in the coolant
brown/black discolored coolant
water in the oil. this will show up as turning the oil orange or making it milky looking
bad idle and general bad performance/lack of power

( let it cool down for awhile ) and try to start it up, BTW I hope you not blow up your moto.

I am betting head gasket for sure. If you do it yourself it is cheap. I blew mine and I went and bought a new engine :-D

I am betting head gasket for sure. If you do it yourself it is cheap. I blew mine and I went and bought a new engine :-D
all i have to say is....WOW

couple questions for you bighauns....
1) cheap fix? , 100 dollars + studs is not cheap in my book but maybe to you it is...

2)why the hell would you replace a motor if you only blew a head gasket?!?!? seems pretty idiotic to me.....

that is pretty cheap considering labor for someone else to do it is at least 1400 (CDN)

And second...
My motor had 225,000 kms on it. I wanted to do a bunch of work to it and I got a good deal on the engine and labor.

dont call something idiotic until you know the situation behind it.

that is pretty cheap considering labor for someone else to do it is at least 1400 (CDN)

And second...
My motor had 225,000 kms on it. I wanted to do a bunch of work to it and I got a good deal on the engine and labor.

dont call something idiotic until you know the situation behind it.
i still think it would be cheaper to get the gasket changed but oh well have your way....

yea when i start it up it idles almost killing and white smoke,steam, is going out the exhaust, and it comes out from under the hood near where the head gasket is.

it didnt make any motor blowing noise just a sudden stutering and then smoking, so i pulled over and it killed and wouldnt start, sounded like a carbirator flooded trying to start.

The HG swap itself isnt a big deal. The pain in the ass for your averag DSMers is that you are basically doing a timing belt job at the same time. If it hasnt been replaced yet, do the full tbelt job. If it was just done you can reuse the parts, but still have to time it and tension it. You can do the "RRE method" (search thier site for instructions) which requires a tensioner tool either bought or made, but doesnt require you to retime or retension, if you do it right. This method however doesnt apply to 2g cars with a 6 bolt motor.

Also bear in mind that HGs dont blow for nothing, odds are you were knocking or something else went wrong. And I would definitely do ARPs while you are in there. Search www.racingknowledge.org for a thread I started titled "ARP head stud info" or similar, in the DSM section. A couple important pointers for doing the head studs properly.

I would suggest a SCE Titan.http://www.scegaskets.com/ Copper head gasket. take your head down to the machine shop and make sure it isnt cracked or warped. when they do that have them oring the head and get a copper head gasket. I have a .062 annealed copper. it holds pressure better and will give you the ability to make your car more insane later. Because copper is a reusable gasket you can do it once and not have to worry about it for a while. The titan series also makes sure that your oil and water jackets are well sealed. I needed to drop my compression in the long run so I used a thick gasket. if you have to get your head milled then I would use the thicker gasket. somewhere around a .040 to .050 for a slight surfacing is good. think about it, better seal, slightly lower compression, here comes more boost.
:evillol: Happy honda hunting. :evillol:

i still think it would be cheaper to get the gasket changed but oh well have your way....

Yeah, it may be cheaper...but not by enough to be worth it.

Head gasket changed with labor=$1400CDN
Result-->Same engine as before, 225 000kms, worked to shit and in crappy condition

New JDM Engine with labor=$1900CDN
Result-->New JDM Engine, 40 000kms, bigger turbo, awesome condition.

You do the math, may cost a little more, but save a lot in the long run and it is totally worth it.

The HG swap itself isnt a big deal. The pain in the ass for your averag DSMers is that you are basically doing a timing belt job at the same time. If it hasnt been replaced yet, do the full tbelt job. If it was just done you can reuse the parts, but still have to time it and tension it. You can do the "RRE method" (search thier site for instructions) which requires a tensioner tool either bought or made, but doesnt require you to retime or retension, if you do it right. This method however doesnt apply to 2g cars with a 6 bolt motor.

Also bear in mind that HGs dont blow for nothing, odds are you were knocking or something else went wrong. And I would definitely do ARPs while you are in there. Search www.racingknowledge.org for a thread I started titled "ARP head stud info" or similar, in the DSM section. A couple important pointers for doing the head studs properly.


Yea i think i was running lean or something, i noticed one of the vacuum lines on the intake tube, not the one that runs to the head but the other one that runs somewhere to the back of the motor came off. So i might have been knocking because of that and it caused it to blow. But it wasnt overheating or anything, just all of a sudden it started stuttering a little then i look in the rearview and seen all kind of smoke coming out the exhaust.

So what is all needed for this HG fix.And if anyone feels the need to come to southern Louisiana to help me with this, please feel free lol. i wont stop you.

I woukld advise against thicker gaskets unless you know what your quench height is. I started a thread on this a couple months back with a LOT of info, I would suggest everyone take a look if you havent seen it. Thicker gaskets can cause more knock through increase quench height than reduce through lower compression. ;) People are doing 500-600 WHP on stock composite gaskets, and they seal great even with less than ideal surface finish. With a metal HG you need a very fine finish on the head and block, not all machine shops provide this, and even if they do you are changing your valve train geometry every time you mill something. Hardly worth it except at high power levels. I went back to stock gaskets for the 04 season. I will probably run them again this year. I did have good luck with Mitsu MLS gaskets too though, but again the block and head had to be set up for it.

If all you are doing is strictly changing the HG, you just need the HG itself, and APR studs are recomended while you are in there (again, read that RKO thread). If you need tbelt stuff I can list that too but I'm not going to take the time unless I know you need it.

Ok i orderd a OEM spec headgasket from Car Quest for $30 and i wen t ahead and got new plugs too, b/c im thinking those are bad too. got the NGK BPS7ES for $7. I ordered my ARP head studs for $97. ok my other question is what else do i need to order to change this, i heard water pump gasket? anything else. Timing belt is only like a year/10K miles old. I found a guy that knows alot about turbo cars, and is a mechanic and the best damn transmission man around here. But he is going to fix my car for like $300 but i goto buy the parts.

If all your changing is the HG, you really dont need to take the car to the shop. Changed the HG on one in my driveway in less than a day.

The work is pretty strait forward and simple, and doing it yourself will allow you to dump that 300 somewhere else in the car.

well im not the most mechanically enclined. but im going help the guy so i can see how to do for the next time it happens

Thats the way to learn. I do this for a lot of people. I get paid, they get educated.

10k on the tbelt is certainly fine. If you know the water pump was done at the same time you are all set there too. Literally all you need to do is the HG and the studs.

Here is a very rough rundown of how I approach this job. Only takes about an hour once you know the job by heart.

-Remove UICP
-Remove cam gears per the above mentioned "RRE method" if you feel so bold, otherwise pull the tensioner and recompress/reinstall. Dont touch the bolt on the tensioner pulley, and you wont have to redo the tension. Measure it again anyway though, spec is .15 to .18 inches between the tensioner body and the tensioner arm (pin extension distance basically).
-remove all wiring and plumbing from the intake manifold, anything holding it down to the car.
-remove 4 turbo to manifold bolts.
-remove the upper radiator hose.
-remove head bolts
-lift head off by the the two manifolds, take it all out as one unit.

On a 2g, you have the additional step of unbolting the tstat housing from the head, or try to deal with the font water pipe. On a 1g this is not an issue, the front water pipe is not attached to anything on the head.

Do your studs based on the info in that RKO thread, clean the block surface thoroughly, same for the head, and install is the reverse order of removal.

Have fun.

ok well took of the head and noticed the #2 cylinder coating was gone. headgasket was blown at that point for a long time, and finally blew the outside of it to makeme reliaze it. The spark plug gap was closed and the valves where clean from all the antifreeze in the cyclindar. Ok well im buying a work truck to get me to work and school and back. Im going to pull the engine out and build it up again.

What are yall suggestions, i'll take a few pics and post them but from the look of it, its not that bad but bad enough to have to take the motor out and either resurface or sleeve or bore the cyclinder out. The piston looks good so far as i can only see the top.

Ok start shooting me suggestions.

ahh this same exact thing happen to me too just waiting to raise some money to fix

Ok well im buying a work truck to get me to work and school and back. Im going to pull the engine out and build it up again.

Thats the spirit!

I would just get the block rebuilt by a reputable shop. If you arent going for high HP dont worry about the torque plate etc, and be sure the machinist is aware that its incredibly important to do a good job aligning the thrust bearing, since we have issues with them failing. My machinist does all the labor for my race motors for 500. In your case parts would be cheap, just a set of pistons and rings at the worst.

Not sure if I already mentioned this in this thread, but read my thread on www.racingknowledge.org (screen name is the same without the space, use it when you search) titles "ARP head stud info" or something very close to that. All you need to know to make sure the studs go in properly and that headgasket lives longer than the first one did.

Get the head checked for flatness while you are there, no point reinstalling a warped head that will just cause the HG t fail again. The trick is to eliminate all possible causes for reocurrance while you are in there, even though it costs a little bit more money. Jobs like this you don't want to do twice.

If you dont want to deal with the 7 bolt and a 6 bolt is on your wish list, now is the time for that. It will cost the same money to rebuild, no matter which block it is. The only potential increase is if you wanted to run DSMlink with the swap, rather than the baro wire mod and AFC combination. Wait a minute, looking at your mod list (see how much this helps people!!) you already have the AFC and logger! Baro wire mod is only 3 bucks, and its quite safe with a 16g sized turbo. IF you decide to go this route, I can offer some more info about the mod that you dont see on the internet ;) Another 7 bolt is always an option too, but its often not cheap and you dont know what you are getting.

Lots of options, good luck. With a daily driver, you can at least take the time to do it right...

hey guys im doing the headgasket change on my 96 gsx now can i still reuse my apr studs?

hope that the headgasket is the worst of your worries. Get a mls or a 4 layer and some arp headstuds, trust me you wont be dissapointed.

ARPs can be reused as long as they havent stretched over .001", which I have never seen happen. Been reusing the same set for years.

the vac tube going fromt he intake pipe to the rear of hte engine is to your charcole canister. if it feel off it wouldnt mess anything up. maby some tree huggers lungs but thats about it. you should find out why you blew the hg before you fix it and do it again.