hey guys was hoping someone could point me in the right direction, after i tell you my scenario. Earlier in the year i was driving to work and noticed my temp guage rise to H and i was smoking. My idiot self thought it was a good idea to keep driving to work since i work at a shop and could diagnose it there. It was one of the coldest days of the winter so i thought i would be ok. i finally got to work and found out i had blown a rad hose. so i changed it and filled up with fluid. Couple weeks went by and i was smoking out of the tailpipe so i knew i had done more damage than i thought and had to change the head gasket. on the weekend i brought the car to work to change the head gasket,
While i had the head off i also did my timing belt, shaved the head, water pump, valve seals and gaskets. The only thing i did not change was the head studs. Which im banging my head on the table for now, because its been approx 4 months since i did the head gasket and im loosing coolant and am blowing white smoke. im thinking because i didnt change the head studs the gasket has gone again. I dont drive the car hard.
Just wondering if someone could shed some light on the situation. If i had done more damage than i thought. ie block? Willi be ok just changing the head gasket again and this time change the head studs? or have i done damage to the block and have to change the engine. Any help would be great.
Thanks

 

also just a quick note... i have done an oil change on the car and did not notice coolant in the oil, and no white sludge on the oil cap

 

If you reused the OEM bolts that is probably you problem. They should never be reused, regardless if someone has done it before. They stretch and are not to spec anymore. I don't think you warped the block. The blocks are cast and the head is aluminum. More often than not it will be the head that gets warped. Most likely the bolts have started to back out, become loose or something along those lines. I would replace the head gasket and use OEM replacement bolts or ARP headstuds if you want something that is reusable. You are probably just losing radiator fluid to the piston through the cooling rings and that is burning out the tail pipe. The tail pipe should smell like radiator fluid. I thought I had radiator fluid leaking through my tail pipe once but it was actually unburnt fuel and I had a very bad misfire in one cylinder. Check the scent.

 

sounds like the block is warped. u should have decked the block too.
unless u are boosted the head studs are fine. honda states they can be reused.

try doing a compression test. then a leak down test to at least see if any of those are ur problem.

 

If this was true you should have been blowing white smoke for the entire 4 months. Should have been. But I've seen stranger things.

 

im not boosted, just a stock a6. the white smoke does smell like coolant..and yes it wasnt smoking the whole 4 months...everything was fine...it just started a couple weeks ago...when i first start the car... i get alot of white smoke. and wont go away until i drive the car over 80km/h for a couple seconds then it clears up... because i think i get coolant in with the pistons because it sputters for a bit,and have lack of power.

 

also when i bought the car last august...the owner said he had recently done the head gasket...and he probobly didnt change the head studs as well

 

mhmm. Sounds like bad head bolts to me over and over again. No harm in checking the block for warpage. If you work at a shop, you should have a straight edge around. And I mean a real straight edge, not a wooden ruler. The bunch of white smoke has to do with the coolant sitting there and burning off at start up most likely.

 

pull the head back off, check it to see if it's warped. do yourself a favor use a z6 or a y8 head gasket (if you didn't before) and kick the graphite crap to the curb.

buy a set of arp head studs, can be had from summit racing for around 110 which isn't much more that what a set of head bolts will cost. speaking from experience here

 

ARP is the best. I heard the Y8 gasket is better? It's metal, but I thought they all were. Anyways, definitely OEM head gasket and ARP head studs.

 

Both are all metal, but they are different thickness
A6 = .048
Z6/Y8 = .037

So you get a little compression bump from the Z6/Y8 gasket.
(Used to be that the Z6 was even different than the Y8, but they no longer make them different anymore.)

 

Alright, that's what I've heard then. Well, that helps me in the future.