I took my car to the shop because it was randomly overheating. I say randomly because it was not all the time and not under a specific condition. The dealer replaced the thermostat, radiator cap, and thermoswitch but still the car heats up. Its specially noticeable because the coolant reserve bubbles up. Now they tell me the head gasket is bad. The reason I need to confirm that the gasket is bad is because I "secretly" replaced the gasket with a Spoon 2-ply. "Secretly" because the dealer doesn't know yet. This leads me to my options:

Let the dealer do the repair under warranty HOPING that they don't notice that the gasket is not OEM and risk the repair bill if they DO notice.

OR

Play it safe; take the car home, pull the head and do the repair myself while I send the head for a port/polish/valve job (might as well get the head job while I'm at it )

All in all, it all comes down to confirming 100% that the problem is the darned gasket. I don't want to go through all this hassle and later discover that the problem was not the head gasket. Thanks a lot for your help !!

 

did you replace the Radiator hoses too? Any oil floating around in the coolant? Check for gooey buildup on the bottom of the radiator cap. Any smoke out the exhaust? How do the plugs look?

 

Let me give you a run-down of the situation. This is a 2001 USDM ITR with the following mods:

IceBox, AEM pulleys, AEM cam gears (0,0), Spoon 2-ply head gasket, Hondata IM heatshield gasket, throttle body coolant bypass.

NO there is no oil at all in the coolant, NO it does not smoke, NO there is no buildup on the radiator cap. The plugs look clean (no oil or staining on the tips).

What is observed on the car ??
1. Random overheating. Temp gauge will go as high as 75%
2. Uneven compression readings from cyl to cyl (as much as 27psi between cyls)
3. Low power. The car dynoed 160HP and 112lbs of torque with the above mentioned mods. There was no baseline taken but 160 seems very low to me.

Comments are TRULY appreciated.

 

any overheating problems before the Hondata manifold gasket?

 

That's an excellent observation... After I installed the Hondata gasket, the car ran fine for about a week. After that, I started seeing the overheating problem. It is also worth mentioning that when I went to test the Hondata install I forgot to top off the coolant and the temp reached about 50% before I drove back home a flushed the whole cooling system and refilled with new stuff. BTW, my Hondata gasket came with the square coolant opening from the head to the IM already cut out just in case you're wondering if I installed it with the "race setup".

 

Hi,

What were the actual compression readings and was the motor warm when it was done?

Leakdown test pressurizing each cylinder separately might be interesting.

Any frothing in the radiator after it warms up and the thermostat opens? (Leave cap off while it warms up!)

John

 

I don't recall the actual psi readings on the cyls (I was too bummed about the difference factor) but I know there were a couple as high as 245psi.

What do you mean by "frothing" ?? Not sure I follow you there.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by iperez &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">What do you mean by "frothing" ?? Not sure I follow you there.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Like foamy, I would imagine he means.. similar to the head on a beer, but bigger bubbles..

 

Ok, if that's what you mean by frothing, then no.. the radiator and cap look just like usual. The only bubbling occurs on the reserve bottle to the side of the radiator. As a matter of fact, the reserve will fill up all the way to the top and even spray out of the plastic top when its hot. After it cools down, the coolant on the reserve will come down to the "normal" mark about halway down the bottle.

 

Switch out the Hondata IM gasket and see what happens. Sounds like you started having this problem after the install, could be the culprit. Good luck

 

If you havent already, I would check the radiator hoses. My civic was overheating a few weeks after I replaced the thermostat and radiator. It turned out the lower hose was bulging and I guess that was screwing up the flow of coolant through the system and it would randomly start to overheat. Replaced the hoses and thermostat again, and then got a full system flush, and it was fine afterwards.

 

It would seem logical to trace back to the last modification before the problem and that would lead to the Hondata gasket. However, there is only one point of "possibility" with the gasket and that's the square coolant pass-through. It won't hurt to check so I'll add that to my "to-do" list. I called the dealer and mentioned the coolant hose suggestion and the guy concurrs that they look in good shape but will check them out for me.

 

We've found that the water port at the end of the head has to flow water to the hot-side of the thermostat housing for proper cooling of the cylinder head. I suspect your gasket is probably the problem...unless the system's still got air bubbles in it.

 

OK but what do I need to check ?? The water port was open when I installed the gasket (it came that way). Did I need to route a coolant hose differently than the way it originally was ?? Also, if this applies, why would it run fine the first week and then heat up ?? Is it possible the gasket was damaged somehow ??
Here's a shot of the ACTUAL installation of the gasket. You can see everything lines up nicely and the water port is enabled.

 

If the water port was open, the gasket's not the problem, unless it's leaking coolant between the head/gasket/manifold.

 

No, its not leaking at all around the gasket. I am really running out of options. I am talking to some local techs today to try and eliminate possibilities before I pull the head, but it's really looking like the head gasket is getting replaced very soon.

 

well maybe its too obvious, how is the radiator looking? Sometimes when they start to go, it will be random at first because it still has some cooling fins that work but eventually none work and it will just overheat anytime you drive it.

 

Good point... I haven't actually examined the radiator; I kind of ruled it out just because of the car's low mileage. I'll check it out just to be safe.

 

I was having this problem of randomly overheating and I was unsure of what to do. I did not know if the head gasket was blown or what, I had coolant shooting out of my overflow container too. The easy way to test is with a BLOCK TEST. Basically you pour the solution (available at your auto parts store) into some of your coolant and if it turns blue it means that you have exhaust fumes in your coolant and therefore a blown head gasket.

 

Perform a CLT (cylinder leakage test), you'll need an air compressor, and the tester, and some tools to remove the spark plugs etc.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by v-attack &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Perform a CLT (cylinder leakage test), you'll need an air compressor, and the tester, and some tools to remove the spark plugs etc.</TD></TR></TABLE>
good idea
but you should do the head job any wayz

 

Well I spoke to the wife and seeing how the car needs to be "repaired", its going under the knife this weekend. I spoke to a local tech who has a very good quality reputation who will be helping me out with the project. We are talking full head job (mill, port, polish, multi-angle valves, port match to IM and header, port match to t-body, Spoon-spec modified t-body, and some valvetrain replacements for safe 9100+ RPMs). The way we are planning it, this should be a really detailed and clean job. The car is also getting an ITR OEM 4-1 header with Carsound cat, MSD SCI system, VAFC, and a few other bolt-ons.

If all goes well, this REPAIR should turn some serious horsepower benefits.

 

Sounds like a nice package you are givin it.

 

Hehe !! I hear you ... Basically, life gave me lemons so I'm making lemonade You guys think this setup will be good enough for mid to low 13's in the 1/4 mile ??