Came real close to introducing my car to the wall at the Buick event yesterday.

Amelio

Active Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2007
So I was real excited to get to the Buick shoot out at Reynolds Ga on Friday, gates opened at 9...left the house at 7 got there right at 9 and was hoping to make some passes at 10 am as I thought they would. Well turns out they did not start running until noon and go figure it was like 88 outside.

I was hoping to get some good tuning in and beat my e.t of 11.54 @ 116 on 19psi I did last year well it did not start good first couple of passes were way off so started playing with the tune after about 5 passes i had the car close to where it was back down to a 11.8 @ 119 the only problem is that it took 23psi to achieve that and the car seemed sluggish and slow to boost off the line.

My next pass i gave it another pound and degree since I had 116 in the tank and had been making clean passes with no knock I went again. This time the car still left the same kinda sluggish but once I got passed the tree it started to pull real hard and I though ok this is gonna be a good run! well just after I shifted into 2 the back end started to get mushy feeling....for a split second I thought I had broke an axle then before I knew it I had the car completely side ways pointed at the wall I was looking at the finish line through the drive side window....I then tried to throttle it straight and it came back hard the other way I was again pointed at the wall and now this time looking at the end of the track through the pass sine window. I did this again back and forth 2 more times trying to dodge the timing boxes in the center of the track and the walls on either side. During all of the back and forth the car sounded real bad so then i knew something in the engine not the rear let go.

I finally got her settled down and off to the left side of the track....got out and popped the hood to find the lower radiator hose blown in half. Once i got pulled off the track I started pulling plugs and sure enough I blew a head gasket which pressurized my cooling system and blew the rad hose.

I just pulled the engine apart today and found #5cyl blown out......I look on the bright side and say at least I am only fixing a bad gasket instead of lots of paint and body work. :cool:
 
Wow! Glad to hear you made out of it OK.
 
I was there!!!:biggrin: I got a really nice tan the last two days! Glad you made it ok!:biggrin:
 
Glad to hear you pulled it out of the slide! But I gotta ask, how do you blow a head gasket with 116 in the tank and the really low levels of boost you said you were running??
 
wall

My Darling went with me this past week end. First time in a few years. I did not see the dare devil driving but she said you did a great job of saving it. She was afraid it was going to catch and roll.
 
Glad to hear you pulled it out of the slide! But I gotta ask, how do you blow a head gasket with 116 in the tank and the really low levels of boost you said you were running??

That gasket was weakened before it finally went, mine blew a few months after some fuel pump issues caused some popping although my boost was in the mid 20's.
 
Thanks everyone for the concern...yeah it was interesting! Fortunately I have had my '69 vette crossed up pretty bad multiple times on the street so i did have some experience with that LOL:biggrin: I tell you though you do not realize how narrow the track is until you are covering both lanes trying to miss the walls:eek:

So to answer the questions posted earlier......I took the heads off yesterday and I am pretty sure the gasket was hurt before it blew. I have had some bad boost spikes on the street and the car had seen some narly kr.....I always said to myself "I can not believe I have never blown a head gasket." #5 is the one that let go and there was no carbon in the bowl and there was rust around the valves and some on the bowl of the head....this leads me to believe it has been leaking for a while.

I also found out why the car was slow to boost and felt sluggish out of the whole....#2 cyl was leaking exhaust real bad at the header flange I had a big pressure loss there.
 
Question

So when I took the heads off yesterday cyl# was definitely blown but I also had coolant in #2 and a lot in #6 This was not the normal amount of coolant from removing the head from the block. There were no signs of gasket issues on the cyl 2,4 or 6 so my question is how did it get there?

I can only figure that coolant from #5 got sucked back up from the intake and shot into the other cylinder:confused:

What your thoughts?

Also my valves are fairly white as you can see in the pic...is this from the lead in the 116 or did it go lean?
 

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sorry I need to explain the pics better......

The first pic is obviously cyl#5 the one that blew.....the second pic is also #5 and it does look like it has been leaking for a while.

the last pic is cyl#6 the gasket does not show any sign of being blown yet the cylinder had a lot of water in it:confused:
 
I'd start to pull the motor and check the bearings antifreeze is a killer to bearings :( glad to hear you saved it and hopefully its a relatively cheap fix.
 
yeah fortunately there is no coolant in the crank case, the gasket blew to the inside and pressurized the cooling system. the only thing that has me baffled is the coolant in the other cylinders?
 
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