So I'm driving to work last Friday and all of the sudden the car starts shaking and sounding quite like my WRX did. I limp it to my office which was only a mile or so away at the time and as I slow down I see a nice misty steam coming from the engine bay. I open the hood right away and bam steam everywhere. I turn to look at where its coming from and I see it. My overflow bottle had a hole in the bottom... So I look around the engine bay and there is coolant sprayed everywhere, a huge freakin mess. Well I go in the office since I had to leave for New York for a few days and bring out a couple gallons of water to toss in the radiator, lets just say it was pretty damn thristy.

I figured the coolant had gotten into electronics such as the connectors and dist cap so I left the car alone until I got back to the office on Monday. As soon as I got there I started it up and still sounds like the WRX. Checked the dipstick but didn't see any signs of coolant in the oil and no smell of fuel in the radiator. Now I'm not sure what the SOHC ZC vtec motor came with as far as the headgasket goes but I was thinking that it could be leaking between 2 cylinders without any coolant mixing. All my tools were stolen out of my car on Halloween so I am very limited on what I can do until I get some more but I need options that don't inlude getting it towed to a shop to pay them hundreds of dollars for something I can do myself. I am getting no CEL but I noticed some white smoke from the exhaust. Not sure if the smoke what from it being cold or what else.

I do not have a leakdown tester but I am willing to make one I just don't have much time available during the work day and I live 50 miles away. Any tech related suggestions would be highly appreciated, and if you need info look in my sig.

 

You can put each cylinder (one at a time of course) at TDC compression stroke with all plugs pulled, pull the schrader valve out of the compression gauge hose, hook the QD up to shop air and listen to the intake and exhaust pipe for air escaping and also the cylinders next to the one you are testing for air leaking out there also. Dont forget to look for bubbles in the radiator.

 

Is there anyway to test w/o a compressor? I have no shop air, we are in the process of moving out office, earliest I can bring my compressor is Friday.