atxjax

Long story short. Trying to help a friend of mine. He got a 98 Canadian Acura EL from a co-worker for $1000. Interior is great. Nothing broken inside, 5 Speed trans in good shape but it does have a suspected head gasket leak. Oil in the coolant but no coolant in the crankcase. Oil is being consumed or dripping out at about 1 quart every 2 weeks.

It had a couple of misfire codes on it and the plugs were worn. We replaced them and cleared the codes. Drove it around, the codes did not come back.

I have not yet done a leakdown test but possibly this coming up weekend I may. I fear its got a bad head gasket as there is evidence of oil in the coolant.

Do we have to have the head gasket repaired in order to diagnose leaking rings? The car has almost 300K on it.

What would you do besides torching the car?

ejv8s10

You do have a leaking head gasket, (or worse).
With 300K miles there is little sense in repairing that engine.

You can buy replacement engines quite cheaply. Do that if the car is otherwise worth keeping.

I believe you have a D16Y8 from the factory. You have lots of choices.
A low mileage Y8 engine is about $950 from a JDM supplier.
You can find decent D15 & D16s (VTec or non VTec) from $300.
Any D15 or D16 will work, with a few simple changes.