AUII_Forte Falls Victim to Headgasket!

AUII_Forte · 23-03-2005, 07:03 PM

Well I think I may have blown my headgasket this afternoon. Was doing a bit of sprirted driving (read: sideways drift action on a dirt road! :P ) and when I got home, I noticed a strangely familar smell......coolant.

Hopped out and popped the bonnet, saw a little bit of steam coming from under the inlet manifold, stuck my head under the car and what do ya know......a stream of coolant coming from a split heater hose. It was running a little warm, probably around the 'R/O' in NORMAL, but deffinately wasn't overheating.

Don't know whether it's done the gasket or not, it was running fine, but when I turned it off and checked the coolant the bottle was pretty much dry. Then I went to start it again and it coughed and spluttered and then stalled, but started ok the second time.

I figure the hose is gunna be an absolute biatch to do with the head on anyway, it's a long weekend coming up and I have been looking for an excuse to put the freshly ported and reco'd head on that I got done for the EA. So looks like I'm off to buy a heater hose and VRS tomorrow!

Another thing I noticed, the fans only seem to be running fairly slowly. The temp was up when I lifted the bonnet, I couldn't hear the fans, but I could see them going. They weren't really sucking much air either, are they variable speed or 2 speed in the EF's?

MotherNatureVer2 · 23-03-2005, 08:28 PM

Bugga Dan ..........

needturbo6 · 23-03-2005, 08:58 PM

If your goin to be turboing your car you should prob get the metal AU head gasket. or you could get a thicker ACL gasket to lower compression a tiny bit as the AU's have a fairly high comp and you wont be able to run over 8psi i think...

i thought AU's were single speed fans, not totally sure. i have heard of a few stuffing up but u may as well fix the heater hose first and if it still gets hot check the fans...

AUII_Forte · 23-03-2005, 09:31 PM

It's actually an EF, the AU was my old car but I haven't changed my username. I think I'll have to run a standard gasket because I really don't want to increase compression at all.

EFFalcon · 24-03-2005, 08:02 AM

Ef's have 2 speed fans.
with the 2nd one coming on fairly late.

under the inlet manifold is a ltitle different, most of the time its from under the exhaust manifold.

Danny · 24-03-2005, 04:52 PM

My leak was fron under the Inlet manifold too. A headbolt had broken there and see ya later...

Walkinshaw · 24-03-2005, 06:11 PM

cyl4 headbolts suck.

AUII_Forte · 24-03-2005, 07:39 PM

I have the car pulled to pieces at work at the moment. None of the bolt had snapped, everything came apart pretty well except untangling the mess of wires round the inlet manifold to get it off!

I don't think the gasket blew at all, just my overactive imagination! No water in the oil no evidence on the gasket itself. The only thing I've found is whoever owned it before decided plain water is better than coolant, what a disaster! The heater tap is rooted, not to mention every other hose down there!

EFFalcon · 24-03-2005, 07:43 PM

heater tap sucks anyway :P

AUII_Forte · 26-03-2005, 12:33 PM

Started the job at 5.00pm Friday arvo and finished at 2.00am Saturday morning with a few breaks in between.

It's all back together and driving like a dream. The only problem I have is it's idling high in neutral, in gear it idles at about 750rpm, but in neutral it jumps up to about 1100rpm. What is the correct procedure for setting the base idle on an EF??

With the stupidly ported head on an otherwise stock engine, I think it's lost a bit of low down torque, but when it gets to 3000rpm.......hold on!!! It flies when it's revving and it doesn't mind revving anymore, deffinately a lot more responsive and doesn't sound like a vacuum cleaner in high revs anymore. Overall I'm happy with it, just have to get my 3.45 diff gears in to help it off the line.

NZ · 26-03-2005, 04:19 PM

dannys car did nthe same thing the fool forgot to plug in the air temp sensor on the back of the manifold.