Friday night I made a couple of passes, and after the 2nd, I got in the car after about 20 minutes of cooldown, and on startup I was on 3 cylinders with lots of steam out the tailpipe. I had no other way home, so off I went, after about an 1/8th mile it picked up the 4th cylinder and ran fine the 50 miles home. Temp was rock solid and the car never missed a beat. The next morning I checked the oil, looked fine on level and color, and the car cranked up and ran fine. The engine is a b-17 with studs and a holsett hx35 on 15psi and race gas. On the last pass the afr was 12.0 at wot. I really don't think it's the head gasket, but is there any other way to get water in a cylinder? I had the car miss on startup after a pass at Motgomery 11-09-2008 but no big steam out the exhaust, you culd smell anti-freeze but no steam. The car ran fine on the next pass and has made several passe since then with no problem.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

hrmm

 

check the compresion and do a leakdown

 

I plan to do that tonight, but any other recommendations would be appreciated.
Is there any way for water to get from the intake manifold into the #4 cylinder?

 

what style head gasket and torque spec did you use?

 

Stock honda gasket,lube torqued per arp spec's, final torque of 80ftlbs.

 

possible intake gasket.

 

I would change the headgasket and get the the tune checked up on. If you are smelling antifreeze after a run it is never a good thing. Change the gasket before it gets worse and you really hurt something.

 

I feel like it is the gasket, but I was hoping someone would have some input on something I might have overlooked.
Thanks for the ideas.

 

check the headgasket, then the intake gasket, not sure on the b17 but i know the newer gsr's (b18c1) intake manifolds have a coolant port, if its your intake manifold gasket, coolant could get in the chambers, either way i wouldnt be running it, hurry up and check it out before you drop a sleeve from hydrolock.

 

AFR is only a portion of it. Timing advance is the major HG killer with oe based ECUs provided everything else is cool.

Miller had it right, Just put a gasket on it and check out the tune. At that point you'll at least have piece of mind.

 

Thanks for the input, I was just hoping there might be something else. It has been cold and rainy for the last week and I haven't been able to get motivated.