So as mentioned a couple of days ago I have been experiencing cooling system issues for the last few months, in that some cooling water gets pushed out of the overflow bottle when going pretty hard in the car. It has gradually got worse over the last 4 months or so, to the point at the Antilag Barbagello night last Tuesday, I was putting around 1.5 litres of water in after every 5 lap run. Not good.
To be honest, I was obviously hoping it was something simple like a radiator cap that was opening under its rated pressure, or a thermostat issue. Being a head gasket was the probable cause, but I was like, nah.... We found out today that both head gaskets have failed on all four cylinders. Not good I suppose, but it was nice to find the issue that had been causing the cooling water to overflow. Basically under boost pressure, I was blowing air / fuel / exhaust gasses into the cooling water system. Then over-pressurised the system & pushed cooling water out of the overflow bottle.
On a good note, the engine looks really clean & healthy. A set of metal gaskets have now gone in, with a couple of new pulley bearings to get rid of a knocking sound.
A few photos of what we achieved today. Huge thanks to Paul, Geoff & Matt for all your help.
Early start to finish it off tomorrow & it should be dropping skids by lunch time
I forgot to take photos initially, so I started after the radiator, alternator, inlet manifold etc was already out.
Pretty clean
Cams coming out
Heads getting a quick gasket matched port on the exhaust, just to open them up a little.
Turbo coming off.
Ze problem
STI gaskets going on
Hone markings still present in the bores.
This is where we finished today. Really, a heap of work got done, which I am really happy about. I was quite aware of the head gaskets being the weak spot on this motor & I was glad to change them out for the stronger ones. We also put a set of equal length headers on the motor, whilst we had the opportunity.
Lots more to do tomorrow & I will update with more pics when finished