Well, I am not sure what happened but when I started the car tonight and there was some condensation coming out of the exhaust. Since it is so cold here now I did not think much of it but after 30sec or so it did not stop. So I pulled all of the plugs and all the pistons were shinny. Using a screwdriver I scraped some up off and it was sticky. I am going to get my Endoscope later this week and verify but I am pretty sure it is antifreeze.

So is there any way that water can get in other that the HG? I did check the charge pipes and they were dry.

When I torqued the head the first time I did it by the book. Then after heat cycle I retorqued by loosening all the bolts leaving some tension on them, then following the factory torque specs again.

Since the install I have put about 25miles on the car and 2 hours worth of idling. As far as the driving is concerned I never went over 7500 rpm or 6.5 PSI, so it was babied and never overheated.

 

Well arent you running that sce copper headgasket? Did you apply any rtv to the coolant passages? I knew copper gaskets were prone to leaking fluids, but that is just ridiculus if it is leaking after only 25 miles.

 

what was your timing like? i doubt it, but you could have lifted the head at 7500 and 6.5psi. but i would expect some piston damage first. even when i melted every single piston, and melted a hole into the cyinder wall, the head never lifted and the cooling system was never pressurized. that was with stock head bolts.


If the head is cracked it could cause coolant to go into the cylinders. but all 4? that's highly unlikely that it happens to crack on all 4 cylinders. i'm betting it' the HG.

pressure in the cooling system when you run the engine? did you re-do any coolant lines, like iacv?

 

No RTV, they recomended that I use only KW Coopercoat.

Here is a short video taken after the car was warmed up.

 

single exhaust on the left? interesting!

but why aren't you using an OEM gasket? from majestic i think it was only like $60.
http://www.hondaautomotiveparts.com/auto/j...5=CYLINDER+HEAD

46 plus shipping and handling.

 

Grrr I can't view that on my iPhone.
Call me crazy but I think it's just condensation. It doesn't smell like coolant and it is 36 degrees and 100% humidity at your house right now.

 

There is no pressure venting from the coolant system. I refilled the coolant overflow as it was low and I am going to keep an eye on it now.

The only cooling changes I made was to remove the IACV and throttle body from the circuit and took the line from the water pump straight to the manifold.

I was thinking of doing a cylinder leak down test, if it leaks down quickly I will know what has happened.

As for the cylinder head it was completely worked over and there were no problems, it was working fine before the swap also.

 

[QUOTE=m R g S r,Nov 16 2009, 09:29 PM] single exhaust on the left?

 

When I pulled my head a few weeks back and had it built, I noticed when I got it back that there was some slight pitting in the cylinder bowls in a couple of cylinders. I called the head/machine shop that did the work to find out what it was and he said its caused by coolant getting into the cylinder under combustion. My Hondata intake gasket started leaking just before the head pull btw. He said it won't hurt anything in my case but it did look odd. I'm just telling you this because if coolant is being burned over a long time, it will pit and eat away at the cylinder head bowls and can be damaging and bad if it gets bad enough. Just be careful and make certain that its not leaking coolant into the cylinders.

Also, it probably wasn't a good idea to have loosened the head bolts to re-torque after your heat cycle. It probably would have been best to just go back over them at the final tq setting to see if any were loose. When you loosened them, it could have possibly released the gasket just enough that it messed up it sealing surface.

 

Since I am using the factory torque to yield bolts I had nothing to go on but the factory torque spec which requires that you loosen to twenty some pounds then retighten by 90 degree increments. That is the only thing that makes since to me, how can antifreeze get in with the Hondata Gasket? I am using the factory but there is no way I could see for coolant to get into the intake manifold.

If I do it again I will by studs just so I don't have to F with the factory sequence, plus they are not that much different in price between the factories.