KA - Overheated - Headgasket / Please help

[John_R]

I try never to post except when I absolutely get stuck. Unfortunately, I've had the worst luck with life than anyone I know.

So I finally got my S14 running good. Got a couple of small leaks fixed, car was idling. Went inside to take a leak, come back out there is water coming out of the radiator overheat hose. So I cut off the car. About half hour later I go out to crank up the car. Starts right up, sounds pretty normal, then I see the worst. Smoke bellowing out of the tail pipe. I can't tell if its oil or water.

So I pull the fuel pump fuse, spark plugs, etc and do a compression test. Not only were the numbers perfect, they were really high. I had exactly 185-185-185-185 across all four cylinders.

What the hell? So I'm confused. I haven't tried to go back and start up my car, but I'm going to wait for it to cool down completely and compression test it again.

I'm actually getting really sick of working on this car and running into nothing but bad sorry luck. Anyone want to buy it? *laugh*

[koreanguy9]

if its blue smoke its oil if its white its coolant. most likely its your thermostat i had the SAME problem sept the smoke i changed everything even to a brand new koyo alum rad but still over heated.. i took it to a shop found out that i needed a Nissan thermostat all aftermarkets didnt work on my s13 even the nismo one.. wierd..

anyway if its not your thermostat its waterpump. thing you should check is the temp from top hose from ur rad and check the hose from the lower rad if top is hot and the bottom is cold that means you got no circulation through the engine its gotta be thermo or waterpump. if u changed both try running your car without a thermo and see if theres circulation through ur block.

hope that helped

[John_R]

The compression test is the same no matter what I do. 185 across all cylinders. Cold, Hot, etc.

Any ideas what else I can check. Coolant looks clean, and the oil looks good.

[louisdaboois]

well, im not sure exactly how much smoke is bellowing out of the exhaust. But the easiest way to determine if its oil or coolant burning is to smell it. oil has a nasty bittery smell to it and coolant has more of a sweeter aroma.

But if your compression is good, and there arent signs of coolant in the oil or vice versa and it starts up fine. It says you didnt hydro lock it (filling the cylinders with water). The ecu kind of has a failsafe when the coolant temp starts to get really high, it dumps more fuel to help richen things out which means lower combustion temps. It could have just been the residue fuel that wasnt burnt off when prior? Thats the only thing i can think of.

[just1pepsi]

Yeah, if the compression is good headgasket should be ok, and def not a cracked cylinder or head.. are they all 4 exactly 185? if they are.. you might try a different guage.. maybe that one is faulty? .. as stated water/coolant is white, oil is blue, gas is grey-black smoke.

oh, and dont give up, you'll get it figured out eventually... and you'll know every bit of intimate info about your car that you ever wanted (or diddnt want) to know.

[93pignose]

how many miles on the engine maybe it just valve guides, run the car and have a freinds look at the smoke with u, i knwo it hard to tell but look at the smoke after it above ur head