bad head gaskets?

ok heres the problem. for the past 4 days or so when i start my car (with a 3.8 v-6) it idles really really rough untill i give it some gas. it doesnt matter what gear its still rough untill i give it gas. yeasterday i topped off the coolant. i drive about 20 miles today and i lost the amount of coolant between the full when hot and the full when cold marks on the reserve tank. i think my exhaust smells sweet but i cant be sure. there are no evedeant leaks in my cooling system. and no collant on the oil dip stick when i checked it but i dont have the ability to drain the oil and check wgat is in the pan. any idea's anyone? im at a loss so any advise would be appriciated. Jess

i know there is a chemical you can put in the coolent/radiator to tell you if your getting exaust gasses in there.but i dont know where to buy it you can try an auto parts store and ask them.
my old man uses it at his shop i get a chance ill ask him.
bets are it is your head gasket there common in 3.8's

my luck it is the head gasket but i had both of them replaced in december when i bought the car with 125k miles on it. i put only 5000 miles on it sense than. the exhaust does smell sweet and its white most of the time. the only other thing ive done extra to the car is i put a k&n air intake kit on the car about 2 weeks ago. the problems ive been having are only about a week old. could the air intake kit be partly to blame? What are the common semptoms associated with bad head gaskets on these cars? Any advise would be appriciated.

Check your oil and see if it looks milky? You might just have a coolant leak and another problem causing the car to run rough.

the oil right now looks fine, no milk crap can be seen. where could i have a coolant leak that would my my exhaust smell like anti-freeze though?
it has been really cold here and the routing pulley on my alternater looks really worn, could that be it. it runs rough for only about 45 seconds or so. but the smell of the exhaust is what has me worried. Thanks for the good advise guys, please keep it commin. Jess

Pressure test the cooling system.

if it was done in december go back to the mehcanic see what he says.ill tell you from experence where im from (longisland)most mehcanics wont do the job one told me for evey 10 he dose 4-6 come back. my father told me when he was doing them he had good luck the only one that came back was the one he sent out to get done.(his secrets do both sides w/new heads cause the aluminum heads and use top of line gasket he says if the motor overheats - even if the gasket shows it went bad and the head looks good you just cant tell if their a hairline crack/fracture somewhere in it stressing it.

speaking of my father i never asked him yet about that chemical

this problem really sucks. I know that there is collant leaking into the block somewhere and its going into 2 combustion chambers. today i pulled my spark plugs and to of them look like there begining to rust and the other four look fine. My mechanic said something about it might be the intake gasket especially sense i put that intake kit on the car. he says that the gaskets arent meant to handle the extra power and i will probobly need most if not all the gaskets replaced if i want to keep suping the car up (and i do to an extent). I trust my mechanic's experiance and intentions on things. The scariest thing today was driving it home from tulsa on the free way i was going about 75 and the engine went form the norm temp to hard in the red. i freaked out and empidiatly pulled over to look at and feel the engine. it actually felt a little coller than usual but why is the temp gauge going crazy? it went back to norm and back to the red like 6 more time in 45 minutes. Is this a typical head gasket or maybe intake gasket symptom when they go out or is it just something else completely wrong with my car? Thanks for all the help guys please keep it coming. Jess

Being low on coolant will cause your guage to freak like that. You stated your mechanic told you it may be an intake gasket because they aren't designed to handle more pressure. I disagree. The intake won't see an increase in pressure from letting the engine breath better. You may have higher combustion chamber pressures. The only other thing I can think of related to the intake is if the gasket was bad to begin with or you didn't get it sealed properly. Odds are a headgasket has gone south. Go get a pressure test done.

flewthecoupe is 100% right.I never heard of any motor having such a problem because of a intake kit(thats not including an intake manifold).You mehcanic is pulling your chain big time.hes pulling the old i didnt authorize the aftermarket intake kit so im not responsible for your headgaskets.Thats FFFF-up.The lazy screw-up dont want to do what he didnt do right in the first place.and he hopes you go away.
its up to you, i cant tell for certan from this side of the computer if it is headgaskets but it sounds like it.
and i apologize in advance esspecially if im wrong for bad mouthing you mehcanic

He didnt do the head gaskets the first time. The Ford dealership i bought the car from did. My mechanic said it was a possibility but he also said it is more thna likly a head gasket. Im gonna have him replace both of them just to be on the safe side. We did pin point why the gasket failed so quick. the thermastate at the top of the engine was sticking so there was no or very little coolant flow through the engine untill recently when it opened up wide when the car was started. That is acourding to my mechanic. (the thermostat thing) My mechanic has been doing work for my family for almost 20 years now so i do trust his judgement on things and like i believe i said in the above post he said the intake kit and intake gasket were possibilities.