Here's whats been checked:

Compression
Ran a compression test and got the following numbers:
cyl1 - 180
cyl2 - 215
cyl3 - 215
cyl4 - 215

Ran it again
got 215 across the board. hmm. Seems good.

Radiator
Not losing any coolant. I run water wetter and distilled water. It's all there. No leaks anywhere.

Only noticable problem is:
- I smell coolant...and the coolant looks kinda milky.
- during a track event, on a hard left turn, I'd hit a bump and a cloud of white smoke would puff out. Added a catch can and haven't had any smoke problems since...but i haven't had it out on a track yet.


I'm guessing it might be a blown headgasket, but...wouldn't the compression test indicate that...as well as less coolant.

 

only two places coolant can enter combustion chamber: head gasket and intake manifold gasket.

did #1 sparkplug look any different?

 

When my headgasket went, it was sneaky. Barely any oil in the rad, no milky substance in the oil, no smoke out of the exhaust, but I was loosing a little coolant, barely. I figured it was a headgasket, bought all the ****, and a month or two later it started overheating so I swapped it out and all the problems went away.

Moral of the story: Not all headgaskets go out all crazy style.

 

sounds like a head gasket, the only way to be sure is to take the head off.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Tyson &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">only two places coolant can enter combustion chamber: head gasket and intake manifold gasket. </TD></TR></TABLE>
Hmmm... you bring up an interesting idea.

Intake manifold. Since I'm running a Skunk2 manifold... this might be the case. I'd rather start simple then work my way to bigger problems.

 

Headgasket

 

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

 

Head gasket

 

Okay, this is going to sound like a stupid question...
This white smoke you see...you're positive it's coming from the tail pipe?

Because I had a guy asking me the exact same thing on a small circle track racer. Under full suspension load at end of a turn, it would smoke white out behind the car.
I guessed head gasket.
He replaced it, but was still blowing smoke, and only while racing...could not duplicate it on the street.
Turns out, one of his fat rear tires was rubbing as the car was turning left/leaning right and the suspension was nearly fully comressed. The rubber contact produced white smoke, and misleadingly out the back, as the car was moving so quickly.

 

it's not tyre rub... already ruled that out by swapping wheels/tyres.


so, head gasket eh... wouldn't the compression test show something... ?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Driven &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> so, head gasket eh... wouldn't the compression test show something... ?</TD></TR></TABLE>

I wouldn't think it would, especially if its a REALLY small disturbance in the gasket, not affecting compression numbers. However under heavy load would cause a slight seapage.

Did you already rule out anything Intake Mani related?

Did you try the tech/all-motor/auto-x forum yet?

 

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

so, head gasket eh... wouldn't the compression test show something... ?</TD></TR></TABLE>

My compression was fine when my headgasket was gone.