Blown head gasket

[89ICBM]

I don't know how many of yuh have had the priviledge of this experience but I thought I'd give yuh a good laugh. I thought someone took a shot at me.

 

[AKTURBOTA]

Just curious, how much boost were you running the HG let loose? It appears that you didn't leak any water.

 

[89ICBM]

I was only running about 18 lbs and had 114 octane race gas in it.

 

[AKTURBOTA]

I blew an HG last summer. I was running 23PSI and 26 degrees of timing with 116 Sunoco racing fuel. The HG let loose pressurized the crankcase and pumped oil through the dipstick and valve cover breather. The blue smoke was quite impressive. This was at mid track...I limped back to the pits...looked at the data in Turbolink and didn't see anything that indicated that it detonated. There was 2 degrees of ignition retard shifting between the gears, but nothing more. Mind you the computer updates every 1.5 seconds, so it may have missed the"event", but I don't think so. I think that the cummulative abuse of 13 years finally took its toll.

 

[Grumpy]

I was only running about 18 lbs and had 114 octane race gas in it.

hmmmmm....now ya have to think why ???!!

 

[TClassic]

hmmmmm....now ya have to think why ???!!

Uhhh..YEA, could it have been Cumluative abuse from previous owners, leaving the Gasket ALREADY on the Razors edge??
And as far as the Update rate of Tlink, even if it Missed the exact event, it
would CERTAINLY have shown up on the Total Knock Counts at the end of your pass!!

 

[mark b]

Hence the reason that in texas you need to weld the heads to the block

 

[UNGN]

I wish all head gasket failures looked like that.

It doesn't appear you made a milkshake in the crankase.

Yep, there is the perfect opportunity to port the heads.

 

[Razor]

Typically they dont blow outward, they blow upward. Thats side is the easy side to change in-car. Never hurts to pull the motor. 18 PSI shouldnt of killed the HG. I would look at head surface and fastener issue. You should be able and run graphites to mid 20's no problem. Unless there is something else underlying.

I blew a HG on the way to BG two years ago at 18-20 PSI, the head needed .007 to get flat.. bad machine shop here in Fl.

Have your injectors inspected and try and find out why.. cuase to run 18 PSI you dont need the race fuel either. But if the cylinder leans out.. then all will come apart. good gas or not

HTH

 

[postal]

Stage blocks have provisions for 14 head bolts.

It doesn't sound like you where no where close to leaning on this, and it shouldn't have let go. Either it was barely holding on from prev damage or something is wrong.
When you have the heads off I would consider looking into atleast some mild port work. These heads are all chocked up in the bowl area. Even a quicky port job should yeild a nice HP gain if the efforts where concentrated in this area.

jason