Here's what my friend says happens: (I just copied and pasted what he sent me)

when the car gets hot the thermostat opens water begins to circulate though the block ... now when this happens it begins to leak water somewhere causeing the water to come back out the intake manifold and then get dumped into cylinders
causing it to run not only real hot but stall and foul the plugs

What could be the cause of this. Compression is also steady between all the cylinders.

 

Try a crosspost in members' corner... lots of peeps are there...

 

could be a head gasket.

 

I'm guessing some kind of gasket. I'm not sure what gaskets go where on that engine so inspect gaskets and look for cracks in not only the gaskets, but also the block, etc.

 

Aside from a head gasket, the intake manifold gasket and throttle body gaskets might be worth a look, too, based on what your friend mentioned about the coolant coming out of the intake manifold.

Good luck. I assume you're working on a KA engine, not the SR?

 

try altimas.net the altima uses the same engine.

 

try here:

http://forums.freshalloy.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

 

probably a blown/leaking head gasket

 

if that was the case you'd have hydrolock and a lot more wrong than burnt plugs.

 

what are the symptoms?

does it blow white smoke?

the thermostat opening shouldn't have anything to do with it.

the intake afaik, isn't attached to the cooling system at all.

there is always water in the block.

the order in which water passes through the cooling system, starting at the radiator.

lower radiator hose ---> water pump ---> cooling passages in the block ---> cooling passages in the head ---> thermostat ---> upper radiator hose ---> back to radiator.

did your friend physically look into the intake and see coolant?

chances are very high that your friend has a blown head gasket, or something eaqually as bad, possibly worse.