I was having my car retuned yesterday by Steve. It had some stalling problems and a bad idle, so i decided to just tune it past 10 psi, what it was tuned for last time. At 1 bar or 14.5 psi or 311 whp my coolant bottle just boiled over. The car is an H23 with the following:
Modifications:
-GE Sleeved block
-JE Pistons 9:1
-Pauter rods
-Ported intake manifold with secondary butterflies removed
-Portflow Head w/P&P , Titanium retainers, custom dual valve springs,
-ARP head studs
-Quaife LSD
-t3/t04b .63 a/r stage 3 super v
-SFP Manifold
-Hondata 3b w/p74/75 ecu.
-AEM fuel rail
-Aeromotive FPR
-Tial 35mm hybrid.
...and some other stuff im prolly forgetting

The head should be off later this week. I dont understand what is going on. This is the second time this has happened. Last time the head lifted at 1 bar as well but it was running stock head bolts. I thought it would be ok now with the ARP's.
Has anyone had trouble with keeping thier head on on thier H series? I dont think there should be any reason the head should be lifting/hg blowing at this low amount of boost.
I posted on the FI board but i think most of them dont knwo much about the h series....more the b's. Any ideas/insight welcome.

 

you say this is the secodn time you have lifted your head ,, and you have arp's? the only thing i can think of is that if your timing in to agressive , then you build bottom end won't give so i just blows past the head gasket, but thats only if you had a seriously aggressive tune.

Now you sure its your head gasket going, i mean you say teh coolant bottle boiled over you don't think it could be your stock radiator cap letting go from all the extra heat made from boosting. I mean im just taking stabs inthe dark.

 

What is teh stock rad cap rated at? Isnt it pretty ligh liek 40 psi or so? Keep in mind this happened at 1 bar. I only noticed it then, could have occured earlier.

Tuning wise, i dunno if you knwo Steve Sakai but hes pretty well known in the Hondata community. I was also on 93 octance.

 

dumb question maybe, but what kind of coolant/antifreeze are you using?

 

Umm...if i remember correctly just soem preston brand and water 50/50 with the golden eagle additive.

 

andother question you ARE runing the stock radiator and cap arn't you. i wonder if the stock units can handle the amount of heat made at 1bar, i really doubt your are lifting your head, i mean yeah its possible, but 1 bar at a 9:1 ratio isn't that crazzy of a setup , and you have a build bottom end and arp head studs.

IF it turns out that you are truely lifting the head you might want to check to make sure the block is not warped out of shape, or the head isn't warped. Ive run into a problem with a warped head casuing head gasskets to fail, but anything is possible

and do you have the open or closed deck version of the h22a

edit: warped head was on a NON honda, but just as an Example

 

Yea seems like warped h series heads are rare, i havent seen/heard of any. Yes it is stock rad and cap. I dont have an h22 i have a closed deck H23. This is a 92 Prelude Si. Before the head comes off im gettin a leak down test done.

 

Its not the rad cap. Afterwards i drove for liek 2 mins barely hitting boost and the resivour had overfilled.

 

What kind of head gasket are you using?

 

stock

 

what do you torque the head bolts to?

 

80ft lbs.
Just got a leak down test done. Figures are 8% 10% 10% and 15%. Seems to be leaking from the rings. Head will be off by the end of the day.