sirbikealot7

hey guys so i just bought a 93 gs and we've had the worst winter in a long time here in washington and i was out driving and my car started to over heat while i was idiling.

i made it almost to the top mark on the water temp gauge then i saw it and turned the car off, restarted soon after it cooled down for a couple minutes and i promptly drove home with the heater blasting and flushed the coolant. now a couple days later if i get on it a little bit it shoots out a puff of smoke, doesnt overheat anymore.

car has 285k on it but everything has been done exactly on schedual at the dealer. i know what burning coolant smells like and it doesnt smell, but the white puff of smoke has to be coolant.

think its the headgasket or what?

racebum

sounds like it. work a few extra shifts and get a newer car. 285k is really getting up there

sirbikealot7

im a subaru guy and couldnt afford to finish my 94 wrx swapped wagon project so i just picked this up to get me by until i can get back into a subaru. think its likely my head is warped? or would the overheating just cause the headgasket to pop.

1SicLS

most likely just the gasket, but also is it burning oil, and exactly when does it smoke honda has valve seal problems could also be a oil ring. i have seen honda's blow headgaskets and not have any smoking problems it all depend on which part of the gasket blew. and if you didn't heat it up to bad your heads fine.

sirbikealot7

it burns a little bit of oil. probably if past about 75% throttle position it will smoke. the gauge went almost to the upper mark, probably about an 8th inch from the upper mark and then there is the red mark after that

sirbikealot7

bump

1SicLS

maybe valve seals or you over heated a piston ring, maybe a piston. can you do a cylinder leak test

sirbikealot7

would a compression test be sufficient or i need to do a leak down test?

94VTECoupe

Hey I'm from Washington too! I haven't taken my car out since the ground got REALLY choppy, I feel your pain. It sounds like your headgasket is busted, I would have to say that oil burning is only due to the high mileage on the car and is an isolated problem from your overheating if I were to guess.

One thing you could do to help confirm if its a headgasket (which I'm sure you probably already know about) is to open the radiator cap then start up the car and add water if necessary, then let it sit for a minute. Then just go back and see if you have air bubbles popping up in your radiator. Also if your overfill tank for your radiator is all the way up to the top, then you know you've got something weird going on where water is being pushed by the gasses leaking into your coolant and therefore pushing it into the overflow tank where it does no good for cooling your car. Then the white smoke of course is the other thing which you have already used to help you confirm the case.

1SicLS

but he said it only smokes when you get on it. you would really need the leakdown test it will tell you where its leaking from.

System Lord

iTrader: (1)

take a sniff of the exhaust, smell anything sweet? 99.9% positive you have a blown head gasket, looks like it might be time for a build? lsvtec anyone?

sirbikealot7

i wish i could do ls vtec right now but i have no money and no job. im only 17 and gunna have to huck some money for a head gasket. i had a 250awhp 94 impreza wagon that i was just about to get tuned and hit a ****ing tree and had to sell it and took a $5000 loss. honda is not seeing motor mods, i dont have the money to do another build

sirbikealot7

the reason i started the subaru project is because the headgaskets went, burning coolant like crazy so i know what it smells like but i really cant smell much if any coolant in the exhaust