Yesterday, I was on a track with my 4G VTEC. After about 15 laps, the temperature increased from middle to maximum (in one lap, so the increase was quick). I slowed immedately, turned heating to max and cruised, so the temp decreased back to normal in about 2 minutes.

After I stopped, there was water near the water tank, on and under the battery etc., like it overflowed.

Some facts:
1) It was relatively cold, about 10C (50F), do I don't understand how could I get so hot.
2) Heating was set to a half all the time from the start.
3) Both the fans on the radiator are OK (tested after the run).
4) When I was downshifting to 2nd gear in turns, I sometimes saw "something white", like a smoke in my mirrors. I assumed it is my tires and didn't attend to it. Now I realize that it could be a white smoke from my muffler.
5) On my way home, the temp stayed in the middle all the time, and I tried to drive hard.
6) I found no other water leaks

When I got home, I made little research and pics:

I removed the plugs and #1 is more white than the other 3 (#1 is on the left side):


The plug #1 has also some deposits on it's one side:





At this moment, I realized that about 500miles ago, I checked all the plugs and #1 had some strange deposits on it's side, it was relatively big (about 4x4x4mm) and very strong, looked almost like a stone. I removed it with a screwdriver and returned back. The plugs had about 5000miles on it at that moment. Now I realize that the deposits look the same, only now it is a lot smaller (it has only 500miles from the "cleaning").

I found no oil in water or vice versa, but I found some strange chips on the radiator cover:






It looks like some deposits too, anyway, I looked on the cover the day before the truck and there was nothing like this.

What can this be? Maybe a bad head gasket? If I will replace the gasket, should I regrind the head to set it in level - note that the temp. increased to max on the indicator, so can the head be warped?

Thank you for you valuable info,
Petr.


Modified by petrv at 8:30 AM 5/13/2004

 

I do not have time right now to get into the details of this... but I am willing to bet your headgasket is gone, right near your #1 cylinder. The residue on your plugs is most likely burnt coolant. And the white smoke you saw was also most likely burning coolant.

Whenever the reservoir bottle overflows and 'bursts' it is one of two things
1) air in the coolant lines that needs to be bled out
2) toasted pistons/blown headgasket

I would recommend yanking your head asap and not driving it until the HG is inspected. I would also have the deck checked for warping. If there is any warping, it will most likely be near a coolant jacket and you will only need about 10 thou shaved off.

As far as those chips inside of your radiator, I have no clue. I can only guess as to what they are, and I don't think you want me guessing because I always seem to encorperate the worst case scenerio's when it comes to these things.

 

Those plugs look ok to me. The deposit could be from a little oil getting burned. The cylinder closest to the throttle body burns most of the oil that gets in the intake from the valve cover breather hose. The deposits from the radiator could just be some corosion particles from the radiator or engine, or maybe just random crud if the car has been appart or reassembled from used parts. Things you might check: look for oil in the coolant, look for coolant in the oil, top off fluids and see if they constantly go away without leaving signs of leaking, white smoke, uneven compression numbers, or pressurized coolant system even when just started cold -- these could indicate a head gasket. Otherwise I think you might just have a coolant leak or faulty radiator cap. If the cap doesn't seal or hold pressure, coolant will be pushed into the reserve tank when you run the engine hard. When enough coolant is out of the system that it can't circulate anymore, then the engine "suddenly" overheats. I've had this happen on a road trip once. The releif plug came loose and the car was slowly leaking coolant, then after about 600miles the engine suddenly overheated. Under the hood we could see where it had been leaking and drying for quite some time. hth

 

Today I did some other testing.

I started the engine and after about 1 minute (radiator was still cold), both upper and lower tube going to/from a radiator were very hard to press, I almost couldn't press it. You can see a short video here: www.volny.cz/veitel/prelude/overheat/tube.mpg (900kB) - I'm pressing it as hard as my weak hands can . The tube was soft before I started the car. Is this OK?

Next, after the engine warmed up, I made a video of my exhaust: www.volny.cz/veitel/prelude/overheat/exhaust.mpg (670kB). I don't know is this is OK, maybe there was still some water condensation in the exhuast.

Thanks, I really appreciate your try to help me.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by petrv &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Today I did some other testing.

I started the engine and after about 1 minute (radiator was still cold), both upper and lower tube going to/from a radiator were very hard to press, I almost couldn't press it. You can see a short video here: www.volny.cz/veitel/prelude/overheat/tube.mpg (900kB) - I'm pressing it as hard as my weak hands can . The tube was soft before I started the car. Is this OK?</TD></TR></TABLE>

^ = pressurized coolant system. Check your head gasket.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 98CTRCoupe &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

^ = pressurized coolant system. Check your head gasket.

</TD></TR></TABLE>

Should the coolant system get pressurized during a run? Or it should be soft in all conditions?

 

As far as I've experienced, you should always be able to squeeze the radiator hoses easily.

Check under your valve cover for "mayonaise".

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by flyrod &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Those plugs look ok to me. </TD></TR></TABLE>

No they do not. Plugs are not supposed to look like that, period.

Just because your HG has blown does not necessarily mean you are mixing oil and coolant. I have had a HG blow in the past and there was no sign of coolant in the oil, however there were TINY bubbles of oil in my radiator. It depends on the severity of the blow. I would bleed your coolant system and if this happens again I would yank the head.

The more you keep driving under load with a blown HG, the more you are asking to melt your pistons.

 

PrecisionH23a, do you think that the hoses connected to the radiator should be pressurized (hard to press)? Mine are after a minute of running, still cold.

 

They should have some pressure since it's a pressurized system. It should not be super hard to pinch but should feel sort of like a playground ball (for lack of something better to compare it to) Those flakes of metal are what I would be worried about. I would drain the system and check your thermostat housing inside. See if there is a buildup of those flakes there. See if they are magnetic...
I'm thinking maybe you have a clog somewhere in the system not allowing it to circulate through the engine correctly. But I would do a compression test first off and then pull the head as Ph23a said.

 

Hey dude, Before you do anything too drastic, try this

Start your car with the radiator cap off, and look to see if bubbles float to the top, This could indicate a blown head gasket.

Another one, rent or buy u a coolant system pressure tester. This is a hand pump that will put pressure on the system Using the guage put it at the stock radiator cap specs.

See how long the car can Hold that pressure. If it can hold it for a nice time, Then I wouldnt think the head gasket is blown.

 

I would just like to say that is quite a badass camera you have there

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by vtecluder97 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Hey dude, Before you do anything too drastic, try this

Start your car with the radiator cap off, and look to see if bubbles float to the top, This could indicate a blown head gasket.

Another one, rent or buy u a coolant system pressure tester. This is a hand pump that will put pressure on the system Using the guage put it at the stock radiator cap specs.

See how long the car can Hold that pressure. If it can hold it for a nice time, Then I wouldnt think the head gasket is blown.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I second this. When running the motor you will see VERY TINY bubbles coming up from the coolant. If you see any, your HG is toast. A coolant system pressure tester is not a bad idea either. If you have a blown headgasket the coolant will leak into the cylinders. Remove your plugs, then go to start the motor, if the HG is shot on #1, you will more then likely blow out coolant through this spark plug hole.

Keep in mind, compression tests are very misleading. Cylinder leakdown tests are a lot better but can also be misleading. Keep in mind hoses will expand a TINY bit, but if they are ballooning at all then you know you have a problem with the system pressurizing. The cap see's this pressure and bleeds coolant out to the point of it overflowing and blowing off the cover of the reservoir. It has happened to me before, one big pain in the ***.

 

couldn't thsoe chunks be chunks of hg??

When i blew the HG in my legend, the oil looked like mayonaise. It was really gross...

 

My guess was the chunks were either pieces of the piston or headgasket. But the chunks look a little too 'thick' to be of the HG. Sometimes when a HG gets blown you get mayonaise like oil and sometimes you only get little drips of oil that accumulate in the top of your radiator.

 

dam man what kinda camera is that ....those are some dam nice close ups....

sorry i cant help

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by machine4321 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">dam man what kinda camera is that ....those are some dam nice close ups....

sorry i cant help </TD></TR></TABLE>

I noticed that too, gorgeous resolution.

 

I think everyone has put you in the right direction. And your camera and videos make it alot easier to trouble shoot, so to you.

Your coolant lines should not get any pressure till the engine is warm and the thermostat starts to open. So I would say do what everyone else hassaid and you should find the problem. Either way I am taking a guess and saying its the headgasket. And for the chips on the radiator cap... I have no clue!

 

Thank you all for your help, HT is really a great place.

The pieces found on the radiator cap are not metal, it looks more like some deposits from water to me, but relatively hard. If you press it with a screwdriver, it will crumble into some powder, dark gray color. First I thought these are metal chips, because some of them had some "shine" spots inside, so I thought these are some fractions of a HG, radiator etc.

Today, I will make a test with the radiator cap removed, great idea. I will let you know.

 

just wanted to point out that those are some nice macroshots

 

Have you ever tried to flush and clean your cooling system? It could be clogged somewhere and such a pressure could press out the coolant to #1 cylinder. Just guessing a bit, but those chunks of "stone" out of radiator make me think this way.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by pentaq &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Have you ever tried to flush and clean your cooling system? It could be clogged somewhere and such a pressure could press out the coolant to #1 cylinder. Just guessing a bit, but those chunks of "stone" out of radiator make me think this way.</TD></TR></TABLE>

The cooling system had been flushed about a year ago with 50:50 antifreeze. I will flush it when changing the head gasket.

Anyway, I will try to run the engine with radiator cap removed and watch for the bubbles going from the radiator. I'll try to test it today in the evening and I'll let you guys know the results.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PrecisionH23a &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Whenever the reservoir bottle overflows and 'bursts' it is one of two things
1) air in the coolant lines that needs to be bled out
2) toasted pistons/blown headgasket
</TD></TR></TABLE>

PrecisionH23a, now I see your point 2, how can damaged pistons cause pressurizing the cooling system?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PrecisionH23a &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
No they do not. Plugs are not supposed to look like that, period.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

What is wrong with those plugs? They look like about the right temp range, they look like they are gapped right, there is not major carbon on them, no oil, no aluminum specks or cracked insulators to indicate detonation or major cc damage, etc. That one has a little deposit on it but that could be a little ash from burning oil, leaded fuel, or from some fuel additive. The deposit on that one ground strap is mainly on one side, which I would bet was facing the exhaust valves. They look like regular used platinum/iridium plugs to me; I'd guess they have maybe 10k miles on them.

I'm also wondering how toasted pistons would cause the reservoir bottle to overflow?

The coolant system pressurizing immediatly sounds like a head gasket petrv. They are a pain to replace, but you can do it in a day. When is your next track day?

 

petrv, what camera have you got? I want one!