Blew a hose, coolant everywhere, now having heating issues

[Sportsguy83]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

I still see nothing that shows head gasket. The car is modded beyond the ability of the stock components. They need to be upgraded to deal with the mods.

For 3 years I had 550 whp and 480 wtq on stock t-stat and stock radiator cap, stock overflow tank on FL heat and humidity, sometimes doing 7 pulls back to back to back getting the oil temp over 250 (track day too). Only difference I see is I had aftermarket radiator and oil cooler. Never had an issue with coolant temperature.

I don't think a higher pressure rad cap will fix it. I see some bigger problem here unless the overflow little tank is really a flawed design, but that doesn't explain how it was working normally until this day.

The fact that T-stat didn't fix it is suspect. I'm thinking now more it might be headgasket.

[Capt Spaulding]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

I still see nothing that shows head gasket. The car is modded beyond the ability of the stock components. They need to be upgraded to deal with the mods.

What caused the sudden onset of the problem after what was apparently a long history of trouble free operation? He's doing a WOT run through third, which he's done many times with no problem. Only this time the car has a problem.

I'm not sold on the HG either, but I don't see that anything in the cooling system has changed since the previous, problem free runs. The post incident behavior could be related to an air pocket in the block, but that doesn't explain the initial failure. As said before, it's curious.

[NOI]

Sometimes fortuitous outcomes reinforce bad tactics.

[Ultramaroon]

Again, along with @ls1ac's more thorough explanation, this thing WILL trap air in isolated high spots. That's why there's a burp valve on the heater hose.

Make absolutely sure the cooling system has been serviced properly. Then, if the issue persists, consider head gasket.

[FaDuck]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

OK so now to step two. Higher pressure rated rad cap. If the the mp has levelled out but you are exceeding the pressure it is the next logical culprit.

With the short little drive that he took, Im not convinced the fluctuation issue is resolved... Ill go and pick up the car and drive it around this weekend.

I like the little steps you are taking, instead of jumping to the big one. The thermostat was cheap, and I did a quick search for high pressure rad caps, and it seems like 1.3bar is the standard upgrade, and also cheap. I believe ours is 1.1bar? So I dont see why not.

FYI... Even the owner of the shop (40+ years experience), who has been the one working on my car, still believes it to be the headgasket.

[FaDuck]

Damn I missed a lot while typing the above... Time to play catch up

[Ultramaroon]

Originally Posted by FaDuck

Damn I missed a lot while typing the above... Time to play catch up

You have a good one. We're all over here

https://demos.starbase7.net/t3Portal...0419K00HX.html

[FaDuck]

Originally Posted by Capt Spaulding

@OP: Have you talked to FBM yet?

I most certainly have. I spoke with LJ, and hes thinking headgasket as well

Even though I was a little reluctant, he asked to see the log I recorded when the hose blew. People in the same line of work be it, a doctor or a mechanic, or in this case a tuner, are all going to have their own way of doing things, and even disagree on certain things.

LJ saw 18psi and 31.5 degrees of timing, which is a lot more timing than he would use. So thats what hes blaming it on. He said if I didnt have a built motor there would be a rod through the block.

Zach told me its normal to see that kind of timing on E85, thats the beauty of using E85.

[Sportsguy83]

Originally Posted by FaDuck

I most certainly have. I spoke with LJ, and hes thinking headgasket as well

Even though I was a little reluctant, he asked to see the log I recorded when the hose blew. People in the same line of work be it, a doctor or a mechanic, or in this case a tuner, are all going to have their own way of doing things, and even disagree on certain things.

LJ saw 18psi and 31.5 degrees of timing, which is a lot more timing than he would use. So thats what hes blaming it on. He said if I didnt have a built motor there would be a rod through the block.

Zach told me its normal to see that kind of timing on E85, thats the beauty of using E85.

Everyone will have their own opinion, tuners will have their own tuning tactics and not necessarily one is wrong or the other.. Now, I'm not a tuner, I'm not bashing on any tuner, but I do have a lot of experience with the platform and learned the basics of tuning from James Martin, HRI tuning himself live while he tuned my car and he let me fine tune some things on it myself with his guidance.

Although the beauty of running E85 definitely is that you can add almost limitless timing because it's so extremely knock resistance it virtually won't knock, there are still some limits that need to be followed regarding knock and E85 because there is a specific value of timing that should not be crossed because it's harmful to the engine (max brake torque timing). I'm trying to put this on the simplest terms possible. Tuning on pumpgas you will never reach this timing value because the engine will knock before getting there, so you need to dial down the tune based on knock. On E85 since it won't knock, you keep adding timing on the dyno until you see adding time does not produce anymore power and then you dial it back a bit for safety.

Now, obviously a lot of tunes out there are not on the dyno so the tuner uses their vast experience and knowledge to establish that timing limit and that is not a wrong approach, but there are cases where the value that worked for X car does not work for Y car exactly the same. Again please, I'm not knocking any tuner or strategy at all, I'm just offering it from my limited point of view. I honestly don't remember if 31 is a "high value" compared to my tune, I would need to go back and look at logs and see what mine was set at. I will add that I consider both LJ and Zach experts on the platform that have been working on it basically from that start and have vast experience on it.

Don't get too hung up on this, the damage is already done and now what you should be looking at is on fixing it. My personal opinion is growing stronger on headgasket.

[FaDuck]

@Sportsguy83 or anyone really... Lets say it is the HG. FBM is just going to put the same one back in. So, what, I just have to hope it doesnt happen again?

Im wondering if I should dial back on the tune.

[Sportsguy83]

Originally Posted by FaDuck

@Sportsguy83 or anyone really... Lets say it is the HG. FBM is just going to put the same one back in. So, what, I just have to hope it doesnt happen again?

Im wondering if I should dial back on the tune.

I believe the only options for HG are stock or Cometic. Did FBM use Cometic?

Cometic is a solid option. This things happen man unfortunately, built motors are very good and are able to take a lot, but sometimes they're not bulletproof and something unexpected takes it down. The great news here is that the engine did not blow. Considering a motor rebuild a head gasket is one of the simplest less involved fixes since rods, piston, block did not grenade.

But of course, it's still not 1000% the HG. I would take the motor to FBM and let them diagnose and repair. Dialing the tune back a bit is always a good option.

[FaDuck]

They list it as a FBM Spec HG

I'll talk with Zach about dialing it back a bit. He tuned another high hp FRS/BRZ that had the MAP kit, that had the same problem with blowing off that hose.

Apparently this guy just had to replace the reservoir with a bigger one. But for the reservoir to be completely empty and fill all the way up, thats a lot of coolant being pushed, and I dont see with the limited amount of space, the reservoir getting much bigger.

[FaDuck]

Good news, bad news.

Good news is, we have found the culprit.

Bad news is, its the HG... Ouch!

[IMG][/IMG]

So Im dialing the tune back a bit... Zach was thinking the current tune put me in the neighborhood of 500whp (18psi E73). The new tune will be more conservative @ 1bar of boost.

Ill be taking it back to FullBlown hopefully in the next couple weeks to get it dynoed.

I just wish I new why this happened.

[OND]

Sucks to see that the worst case scenario came out to be true, but glad this is finally figured out.