Water lost.

[Bender]

With my VR4 doing a head gasket, Gone back to thinking of the problem that I've had from day one,

Not long after I bought it, notice it always seem to lose around a litre of water after long trip, I never saw any water on the ground or anyting, Then the water would always go blown colour, Lost count how many time I flashed the system and replace with antifreeze and with no time would go blown again, It would build blown crap up on the radiator cap, what felt like it had grit in it,

I'm thinking the water lost was something to do with a blown head gasket, Thinking could the water been leaking into the cylinder when the engine got really hot? We do think that the cooler system was never look after and/or not running the right antifreeze or any at all. Could someone put in that head gasket stuff that you can buy to stop a blown head gasket from leaking?

Not that really matter now as the engine is coming out and doing a full rebuild on it.

[Ghost_2008]

I had the same issue and a new engine fixed it. I figured on at least two possibilities. The water enters the cylinder when the cooling system reaches pressure. The other and more likely option in my case, the gasket on the exhaust side dies, exhaust gases enter the cooling system which builds the further you drive, maybe increases with boost, so running the engine hard allows more gas to escape into the cooling system. This would expand greater than water/ coolant, forcing water out via the overflow....

This would also account for colour change....

[Bender]

At the moment it is the exhaust gases what is leaking into the water, It blew 2 radiator hoses in two days, It building up alot of pressure in a short time within the system, Last time I drove the car, We had the radiator cap off half of a turn just to let the pressure out, It blew water all over the engine and it blown colour already after doing less then 100kms with new antifreeze in it.

Would say the problem been there for a long time and got alot worst over the last 28,000kms that I have drove in it.

[Ghost_2008]

Forgot to say the leak stop stuff is useless, it won't fix a problem like this.... It will have cake everything up and possibly caused blockages elsewhere in the system.....

[Bender]

The heater hoses were all block up, Guess we will find out when we take the engine apart

[Davezj]

be interested to see pictures of this stripdown, to see what actually failed.

[crazydriver81]

I'd say head gasket is past a "small" leak. Only thing to solve that is a full strip down and cleaning of block and head prior to reassembly. If possible post up pics to actually learn from this (also for other people who might enter such problems in future)

[Bender]

Yup I will post photos of the engine once it strip down... Starting to think if the person I bought it off knew something was wrong with it.

[pbaron]

Why don't you ask him then? I didn't know anything was wrong with it, you got two years of running out of it, at least one track day where you gave it heaps and twenty eight thousand kms of travel. If you had problems with it from day one why didn't you say? You have posted plenty of times on here that it was reliable and that you had no problems with it. You are better off just getting a used motor for it. Parts are expensive for them and most have to be genuine.

Yup I will post photos of the engine once it strip down... Starting to think if the person I bought it off knew something was wrong with it.

[Badger_01]

Lol at your sig Pierre. You have too many VR-4s :P

[Bender]

Why don't you ask him then? I didn't know anything was wrong with it, you got two years of running out of it, at least one track day where you gave it heaps and twenty eight thousand kms of travel. If you had problems with it from day one why didn't you say? You have posted plenty of times on here that it was reliable and that you had no problems with it. You are better off just getting a used motor for it. Parts are expensive for them and most have to be genuine.

Yeah I know I've had two years of running out of it, Yes I know I've done a track day and yes I know I've done 28,000kms of travel with it... Why would I said anything about the water lost problem with it to you? No one knew why it was using water and we never thought there was a problem. It must of been doing it before I bought it but probably was never pick up, I only notice it due to checking the oil and water every week. Yes I said it been reliable and had no problems with it till now. No I'm not better off with buying a second hand engine for it, If I was going to sell it, Then yes I would bought a second hand engine for it, Not going risk of having other blown head gasket or something else go wrong.. With what I want out of it and power would like to run, I'm better off rebuilding the engine in it, Maybe won't be cheap, Isn't much me and my mate can't do ourselves But as they say do it once, do it right!!

[Ghost_2008]

I agree, if your going to keep the car then rebuild is the way forward, I was really lucky and Eurospec had a fully rebuild engine waiting on the shelf at the their garage.... As it had been there a while I got it cheaper than it should have been..... still cost me £1000 plus fitting......

But peace of mind was well worth it, 28000 miles later I have started to push her harder and she flies.......

[Bender]

709507095170952


Engine is about half way out so shouldn't be to far away from finding out what the problem was

[Bender]

Well we finally got the engine out around month or so ago and we have strip to see if we could the problem

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And we couldn't see any sign why or where she blew the head gasket, It no signs on the block, both heads or head gaskets themself

We do know that the engine has been overheated as inside the engine smell like burned oil

So we have come down to this why it blew
1, Head/s are cracked
2, Head/s are wrapped
3, It blew to age and/or lack of maintenance of it life

It could also by from lack of maintenance over the cooling system over it life or just lack of use using the cooled or any at all, Always had a problem with water going blown and didn't seem to matter how many times we flashed the system out,

But for now, have got other engine that ready to go back into the car(When I can be bother working on it) and this engine is going to get a full rebuild (Can post photos and what we doing in people are interested in the build) Also have third engine for back when doing the rebuild