While I was at Villains, I lifted the head? I think a cooling issue that started back in July finally caught up to me in September. Although it didn’t seem apparent mid summer. There was an open drift where my turbo coolant lines sprung a pin hole leak. I think ever since then my motor had strange cooling issues. I believe it had a minor head gasket leak that got progressively worse until 3 days of hot lapping at Villains Sportsland.
At VSL6, my coolant needed to be bled 2-3 times due to air getting stuck in the upper coolant hose. What I didn’t realize was that exhaust fumes was slowly building in the coolant lines. On the 3rd day at Villains Sportsland, the motor ECT peaked at around 240 F. After that I called it for the weekend.
When I got home from Walla Walla, I rented a compression tester to see if I lost a cylinder. I was getting around 150-175 per cylinder BUT cylinder 1 was around 120. I ran the compression test a 3rd time when I realized the compression in cylinder 1 was falling a lot faster then the other cylinders.
Turns out, the compression in cylinders 1 and 2 were being pushed into the coolant jackets (yes while I was testing). This was evident when I heard bubbles in the overflow tank.
I messaged Ray at Garage Autohero and asked if he could look at it. For his sake, I pulled the motor and brought him the long block and a Tomei head gasket.
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