first of all, my setup-

b18b block (stock sleeves)
9.8:1 srp pistons
eagle rods
stock gsr head
arp head studs
.076 thick cometic head gasket
garret 60-1 turbo
18psi 400whp/291wtq
tuned with neptune.

After the car was tuned I had problems with it over heating. It was pushing coolant back into my overflow tank. I changed the head gasket, plained the head and it was still doing the same thing. After I changed the head gasket the 2nd time I thought it was fixed, took it for a drive and beat on it a bit, and blew the whole side out of my sleeve. I'm trying to figure out some possible reasons so I don't blow up my new block too lol.

One concern I have is when we were tuning my car on the dyno, after about 300whp it started missing a bit in the high rpm's. The tuner said it was not fuel, it was spark. So we changed the cap and tried it again. It was still missing at high rpm's. He said it is my coil. Since we didn't have a spare coil to try, what he did was gap my spark plugs to .10 thou instead of the 20 thou that they were before. The miss then went away and he continued tuning with no problems. Could having my plugs gaped so close in any way cause my car to over heat or run hotter? Maybe this is what caused my heating problem to start in the first place?

 

It was most likely MULTIPLE things that caused the heat issues that caused your engine to blow up.

 

not the plugs...i run mine tight (not .10) but had to tighten the down to .18 when i raised the boost, my car has new oem coil,cap,rotor,ngk plugs and wires...some oem distributors are weaker than others....

 

did it perhaps have a small crack in one of the cylinders that wasnt noticed, and then it finally destroyed the sleeve?

 

is there any signs of detonation on the tops of your pistons, scared cylinder walls...etc? there can be many reasons to this but for one, Cometic hasnt really had a good running around here so I would ask if you tried a OEM gasket or was that the one replaced? and is your block square? any pics or at least some snap shots of your ignition map? could help with why this happended

 

.076 thick cometic head gasket
^ this gets my vote

 

COMETIC SUCKS

 

That's a question I would ask. Why use a great compression like 9.8:1 for pistons then put some super thick gasket like a .076"? you just ruined the great thing about th engine.

 

the reason for that is because my tuner told me it would be better to have the compression closer to 9:1. I used the head gasket to lower it a bit since I already bought the pistons.

 

You tuner would be incorrect unless he's skiddish about tuning with that compression because of his own antiquated experience. For the many of us here in the U.S. and Canada. 9.8:1 is absolutely perfect and actually recommended. At 10.4:1 for over 10 years w/ an HKS 3037 at 17psi on average without a "blown engine", I can attest to it.

 

i bet you were running too much ignition timing.

and i gap my plugs tight too, but .010 seems excessive to me. what heat range were they?

 

ok, we are running very similar setups upon further review.

i would push coolant out with 15* total up top. i brought it back down to 13* and never had another problem with it.

also im gonna assume the basic stuff like you set the distributor with a timing gun etc...

 

im pretty sure mine was set at 16*. He set it with a gun and I seen 16* on it.