Well I'm almost embarrassed to admit what I found lately. I've
mentioned my recent troubles at the dragstrip where at the top of first
gear (6000+ rpms) it felt like someone threw out a boat anchor, I got a
shift-shift, and my scan tool read the TPS, MAP, and LOAD values
dropping to 0 (I now know that was bogus). I was chasing sensors (all
checked out except MAP - jurys still out on that one) but the problem
turned out to be pretty simple (hopefully). I noticed the truck getting
kinda hot at the dragstrip but I was already letting her cool down
between runs so I just
thought it was because she will now run right up to and past 6k. After
the boat anchor thing happened twice in a row - I went home. I couldn't
duplicate the problem - so I was scratching my head.
Cut to few weeks later - I am running over my normal 180 degrees (work,
stop-n-go traffic) and when the temp reaches about 200 (rare for me) the
engine wants to buck, stumble and try to die when in gear at the
stoplight (moving over lanes to side of road for inspection). I had
memories of the same type of stumble I felt while on the dragstrip
return road to pick up my timeslip. After cooling down - I pop the
radiator cap and everything there looks fine (remembering that I had to
top off the level recently which was abnormal). Then the oil dipstick -
bingo - white, curdled milk like substance at bottom of stick = blown
headgasket. I immediately remembered my last oil change where I thought
I saw something go glop-thud as soon as I pulled the plug away from the
hole. That day I was wanting to dig around in the pan, pour out slowly
checking the bottom where I thought I saw something land then get quckly
covered in brownish black oil, smell it, taste it, rub it all over my
face, waller around in it kinda thing (yall know what I'm talking about
8). Unfortunately that day I was also in a hurry to get it done so I
could watch Winston cup or something important like that so I forgot to
do that. That was about 1200 miles ago. Since then I did check my oil
several times and noticed some of same milky white substance in very
small amounts but at the top of the dipstick <thats your cue Ron>.
Considering we had several very cold days followed by hot muggy days, I
ASSUMED it was only condensation. Went to pick up some FelPro
headgaskets ($14.99ea) at AutoZone and the guy says "yeah, we get about
2 to 3 of those a week - must be a casting flaw in those magnum V8
heads..."
Since I'm now at 113k miles - its not a big deal to me if thats all
thats wrong. The good side is that I actually BEAT two ricers that day
at the track even w/the truck laying down after top of first gear -and-
ran only 2 tenths off my best time from last season. I can't wait to
get the thing back together and back out on the track for my REAL times
8)
Had to share that.
Latr,
Shane
-- '96 IndyRam-HisIndy-MPI/TB/Pulleys/AccelCoil/MPComp/HookerSuperComps/CompTAs'96 IndyRam-HerIndy-numbered(#142)"Track Truck" '74 Triple-Black Dodge Challenger Rallye 360 home-brew EFI R&D vehicle '68 Black Corvette Convertible 427 (For Sale)
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