Last November, I started to have problems with my engine, and it wasn't looking good. I was trying to figure out why it was loosing coolant and smoking oil. I thought I had a leaky radiator, and maybe bad valve stem seals, or turbo seal... I even thought it could be a cracked head. I was wrong.
Well, on Saturday the 11th I came home for spring break, and am at my parents house. That night, I started up my car after swapping in my boat battery, and it started up and ran a bit rough (like it did in November, the last time I drove the thing). So, I did a compression test, and cyls 1 and 3 were a bit lower than the others (first rev was 90 second was 135, were the others were 110 and 165 respectively). So on Sunday, I started rippin stuff apart, like I had anticipated all winter. I pulled the head off, and YES, the head gasket was pushed out a little on cyl 1. And on Cyl 3, it was pushed into both coolant passages, and the firing ring broke on both oil galleries on the rear side of the gasket. This was great news, no cracked head...
So yesterday, I disassembled the head, cleaned it, ported the exhaust ports (about 3mm over stock size), gasket-matched the intake manifold.
Today, I took the head to a local automotive race machine shop (Britco), and they are going to cut new valve seats and grind the valves, install new valve guides, resurface the mating surface, and clean it. After I came home, I pressurewashed my engine bay, and took apart my turbo for kicks. Its been quite a long day, and hopefully tomorrow goes as well as the past few have gone.
Tomorrow, they will hopefully be done with the head, I'll reassemble it, and hopefully drop it back in with a new MLS head gasket.
Here are the PICS, in order from start to current.
Oh yeah, and check out my motor mount HAHAHAH!!
And here's a shot with the new Ryan G Splitter.
More pics and updates to come soon!! 20+psi here I come!
matt
03-13-2006, 09:00 PM
Linear Mode
