SpeedingHatch

So Ive been driving my car just on my street on the warm days just to make sure everything is still good to go while its off the road for the winter months. But I began to notice more and more "milkshake" effect on the valve cover. I had to install my headstuds anyway, so I decided to pull the head.

Besides some carbon buildup, everything looks okay.

Anyway, on with the pics:

Head gasket






As you can see, Im running a catch can, so could that have contributed to the milshake? It started out as barely anything, then soon covered the entire valve cover.


The cross hatch of the sleeve is still visible


So any input?

raiden571

id change the head gasket just in case. one of the inner lyers could me screwed up. hows the oil in the motor look, hows ur antifreeze look? othere then that its difficult to say. im not sure how the catch can would affect anything unless ur motor gets some extreme vaccum and your catch can isnt totaly sealed allowing in moisture

SpeedingHatch

I have a new headgasket, IM gasket, and exhaust gasket ordered, so I will be using those.

However, the oil has been fine. I have never lost any coolant throughout the end of summer until now. But the car does idle up and down and randomly turns off when approaching stop lights, so I figured a vacuum leak. But I read that a headgasket leak could do that as well.

bluemax189

check the throttle body. give it a good clean, that alone can fix alot of idle problems.

RCautoworks

How bad was the milkshake effect that you are talking about.

When you take short trips, oil will build up on top of the cover or cap and moisture can occure causing almost the same effect. This is what I was taught, never looked into it any more though.

SpeedingHatch

thats the thing. After about 3 months of driving, highway pulls, and dyno pulls, there was 0 milkshake. Then I got the car started after being stored for several months and drove it home to work on it. I had the valve cover off then and noticed a tiny bit. Didnt raise any flags.

Then after about a month or so and total of ~16 miles (just driving up and down my street) it got bad. I painted my valve cover a few weeks ago and there was alot more.

Also, the car also sounded like a subaru with an exhaust the entire time I got it back from storeage. The power was still there, just sounded different.

D@nnY

did you paint the block black or is that jsut hardcore dirt?

nsxmatt

Looks like a serious exhaust leak of some kind.

Benjithx

I had a similar thing happen to me, I took my head in to a machine shop to get it checked for true-ness. Sure enough it was a cunthair off and they resurfaced it for me and wa-la, fixed.

EARLdaSQUIRREL

ya i would get your head resurface while its off n your doing your headgasket, its just the smart thing to do in a situation like this

Mase

man, running rich eh?

SpeedingHatch

Okay, I was debating whether to get the head resurfaced, but I guess I will now.

Kind of a dumb question, but, its bored .020 over, so would the standard headgasket be okay?

VTC_CiViC

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SpeedingHatch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Kind of a dumb question, but, its bored .020 over, so would the standard headgasket be okay? </TD></TR></TABLE>

Should be fine. I used a standard HG with a 20-over on my Teg with no problem.