Head gasket failures - why so many?

[Dico]

Hussey Copper is the company that makes performance head gaskets especialy for turbo, supercharge and nitrous engines. You can see them at IPP (import performance parts) but the best price can be had by contacting them directly. ARP fasteners are much higher quality than original and can be had from www.robietherobot.com. The trend in tightning engine bolts has gone from torque wrench to stretch length using a dial indicator. I've read some about it in the ARP web site but not sure I understand. Does anyone know about this?

Just remind me who is organizing the group buy on these?
We're ALL going to need a quality one some time soon.

1-Dico

[dapinky]

Hussey Copper is the company that makes performance head gaskets especialy for turbo, supercharge and nitrous engines. You can see them at IPP (import performance parts) but the best price can be had by contacting them directly. ARP fasteners are much higher quality than original and can be had from www.robietherobot.com. The trend in tightning engine bolts has gone from torque wrench to stretch length using a dial indicator. I've read some about it in the ARP web site but not sure I understand. Does anyone know about this?

Just remind me who is organizing the group buy on these?
We're ALL going to need a quality one some time soon.

1-Dico
2-Pinky

[Rambo]

.. the previous owner must have bought them aftermarket. I'm sure he doesn't know how good they are

Wasn't Doug the previous owner ?

[Ekapol]

.. the previous owner must have bought them aftermarket. I'm sure he doesn't know how good they are

Wasn't Doug the previous owner ?

I meant he meant good giving them to me. It's the cheap gasket that was at fault.

[Veikra]

Ok, I didnt read the whole tread but I wanted to give my inputs on that.

Remember than steel and aluminium dilate (expand) at different rate and thus a gasket on iron/aluminium engine wont last as much as one on a aluminium/aluminium ot iron/iron engine.

First, I run the turbo impulse rs all wheel drive. which is the same engine as the elan with slight differences. I guess you pretty much knows what they are (intake routing, coilpack location yada yada) but there is a huge difference on the cooling system.

First, you guys have 2 fans, different rad, electric coolant pump.
we have mecanical only pump, huge rad with single fan.
What ive noticed is the range of temperature your system experience, IE your temp needle "moves". Ours do not, it stays square in the middle. In fact, ive been running without the fan and it still stay constant. Remember thermal dilatation here.

Second, ive rarely seen a coolant related HGF on impulse RS, what we see here is a oil leakage outside the block. The coolant and blowthru between cylinder ive seen were from excess boost on stock studs (or very bad setups).

furthemore, our gasket on stock engine last 140 000 km and then we may get the slight oil leakage between block and cylinder head. I must add that ARP cylinder bolts pushes that premature failure further. Those stubs will be required for those tracking at over the 2.2 bars anyways.

Maybe your cooling system puts more strain on gasket because of your much higher operating temperature variation?

But, considering how bulletproof this engine is, a gasket every 140 000km doesnt bother me at all.

[Monty]

First, you guys have 2 fans, different rad, electric coolant pump.
we have mecanical only pump, huge rad with single fan.
What ive noticed is the range of temperature your system experience, IE your temp needle "moves". Ours do not, it stays square in the middle. In fact, ive been running without the fan and it still stay constant. Remember thermal dilatation here.

Second, ive rarely seen a coolant related HGF on impulse RS, what we see here is a oil leakage outside the block. The coolant and blowthru between cylinder ive seen were from excess boost on stock studs (or very bad setups).

furthemore, our gasket on stock engine last 140 000 km and then we may get the slight oil leakage between block and cylinder head. I must add that ARP cylinder bolts pushes that premature failure further. Those stubs will be required for those tracking at over the 2.2 bars anyways.

Maybe your cooling system puts more strain on gasket because of your much higher operating temperature variation?

But, considering how bulletproof this engine is, a gasket every 140 000km doesnt bother me at all.

1st we also have a mechanical water pump, the electric water pump is very rarely used only comes on at a certain temp with the engine is off, which then reverses the flow of the coolant.

2nd Most of the Elan HGF are due to the gasket going at the cylinder to the water ways, ie pressure in the coolant system.

3rd the Elans coolant temp is very ie a 1/4 on the gauge (IIRC 82 degrees C)and rarely moves unless stuck in traffic for quite a while.

BTW who`s running at 2.2lb Even costas only runs at 1.6lb and thats at 375 bhp

[Veikra]

Yes i know you have the mecanical pump as well, no ways to hold the timing belt otherwise. Thats why i said we (impulse) "only have a mecanical pump" thereby impling you have a mecanical pump plus something else

About the temperature, I based myself on the Operating temperature tread in engine ancillaries. Berksturk was worried his temp would raise to 3/4 in traffic jams and people told him this was normal. This does not happen on the impulse.

I said atm (atmospheres) not lbs. but people"s gauges here are in psi, i tried to roughtly translate it and failed. Should have read 25psi. Im sure you mean atm as well. Cause 1.6psi while stock is 7/10 psi wouldnt give 375 :p .

But yes, ive seen 25 psi(1.8atm) in the us impulses. they were pulling out around 425 hp. Only saw it on two, three cars thoo. Kip anderson did have some serious horsepower even with the stock intercooler. I'll try to find back those car for reference

As for the HGF between cylinder and waterways, it would comfirm something's wrong with the cooling system. And we dont see it on the impulse, which has a different cooling system. So im with you on that theory Monty. And ive seem a lot of broken radiator on this board :-s

Anyone on this board is the owner of a white elan in Montreal ?

[Monty]

Yes i know you have the mecanical pump as well, no ways to hold the timing belt otherwise. Thats why i said we (impulse) "only have a mecanical pump" thereby impling you have a mecanical pump plus something else

About the temperature, I based myself on the Operating temperature tread in engine ancillaries. Berksturk was worried his temp would raise to 3/4 in traffic jams and people told him this was normal. This does not happen on the impulse.

I said atm (atmospheres) not lbs. but people"s gauges here are in psi, i tried to roughtly translate it and failed. Should have read 25psi. Im sure you mean atm as well. Cause 1.6psi while stock is 7/10 psi wouldnt give 375 :p .

But yes, ive seen 25 psi(1.8atm) in the us impulses. they were pulling out around 425 hp. Only saw it on two, three cars thoo. Kip anderson did have some serious horsepower even with the stock intercooler. I'll try to find back those car for reference

As for the HGF between cylinder and waterways, it would comfirm something's wrong with the cooling system. And we dont see it on the impulse, which has a different cooling system. So im with you on that theory Monty. And ive seem a lot of broken radiator on this board :-s

Anyone on this board is the owner of a white Elan in Montreal ?

Our electric pump doesn`t do anything when the engine is running so has no effect on temp when on a run.
When the M100 was being born it was tested in xtreme heat and cold conditions so there`s nothing wrong with the elans temp unless there`s another issue.
The reason why most peeps rads have failed is not cause of temp issues but cause the head gasket has failed which results in the combustion gasses getting in to the coolant system and over pressurising the system which the rad cannot take and because off the hot gasses thats when peeps see the temp go up.

Don`t know why i put lb that was meant to say Bar, so that should of read 1.6bar for costas M100. BTW you did put Bar after the 2.2

BTW if your temp doesn`t move on the impulse what makes the fans kick in?

[Veikra]

I understand the rad could go from the failed gasket but what im trying to figure out why that gasket fails in the first place. And since that particuliar failure is not seen on the impulse, it can only be from something different between the elan and the impulse.

Oh, and i wonder do you guys have some oil running down on the transmisiion side after roughlty 140 000km? Thats our gasket problem.


and yes, i put bar. bar and atmosphere are almost the same as 1 atm=0.98 bar.

well my fan rarely kick in, even in summer, so yeah, temperature is pretty stable. When it kicks in there isnt a noticable difference on the gauge and it will only run for about 10 seconds.

[RayD]

For those yet to do it…there’s a lot to be said for fitting a manual overide switch to the fans.

And… the bonnet might have benefitted from some air outlets…

Last year during the MOT while the car was ticking over, the fans came on – this year I was ready to demonstate the newly fitted fan switch and the temperature remained normal – the difference was, this time the bonnet was up.

Ray

[GeoffSmith]

What we could do with is a datalogger to record plenty of coolant temperature information which I think may highlight the problems of a relatively small volume cooling system and lack of airflow around the engine which would benefit from an additional cooling strategy.

I'm hoping to stick some thermocouples under Phil's bonnet/hood at Castle Combe just to see how hot it gets.

[Veikra]

As soon as i get my pcb, I could provide an impulse temperature log to compare if you want it.

What would be interesting is knowing history of the cars prior to failure, as we cant yet rule out bad installation.

-was it the first gasket
-If not, who replaced it
-If replaced, was it replaced by an oem isuzu one
-mileage when it failed or mileage between each gasket

[blacknight]

Ok got the head off at last (Many thanks to Paul and Dave for there very kind help and encouragement)

My head gasket had rotted through in places giving it a perforated effect.

The water chanels had silted up also.

Lack of antifreeze?

High mileage at aprox 115 thou gasket looks original?

Cheers

Iain

[Joe]

I'm pretty convinced my head gasket has failed. The car did have major cooling problems last year and got very hot a few times. I fixed the cooling system but did not check the HG.

Symtoms are:

Huge appetite for coolant and no puddles

Poor hot starting and a missfire which quickly clears when its finally going (moisture in a cylinder?)

Pressure and a exhausty whiff in the expansion tank.

Looks like its a trip to the shop for a gasket set and a crate of beer then a trip to the timsters for a headgasket party.

Do the head bolts need replacing at the same time?

[Monty]

Doesn`t sound to good but get a block test done 1st to confirm.

The head bolts do not need replacing as they are not the stretch version

My advice is to not drive the car to much as you may end up with a leaking radiator due to the extra pressure in the coolant system. This has happen to me and a few others

[rip]

Poor hot starting and a missfire which quickly clears when its finally going (moisture in a cylinder?)

Pressure and a exhausty whiff in the expansion tank.

Sounds like HGF to me.

If you want an idea of where it has gone, take out your plugs & shine a small torch in each cylinder. The black piston crown will indicate which cylinder is not firing. Not that it matters if you are going to strip it down anyway.

[lotuska]

Or you could hollow out an old spark plug, connect to a compressor and watch the new fountain you have created...see my video here

[markv]

Oh dear, my turn....

Following a number of months of significant coolant loss after short journeys (2l after 10-20 mile max), replaced leaking water pump a couple of months back. Since then there has been a huge pressure release whenever I unscrew the header tank cap, accompanied by lots of bubbling. After a 200 mile round trip at the weekend (the longest journey I've done in my Elan for a year or more), I noticed the same, but this time the inside of the cap was also covered in a horrible thick brown gunk with the consistency of whipped cream. Also c. 0.5l water loss, and water has a strong hydrocarbon smell. Come to think of it, the car has had the occasional misfire and unusual smoky smell for last 6-12 months.

Going into Steve Williams for diagnosis and repair shortly, but now touch and go whether she'll be back for Hethel

[Specky]

Oh dear, my turn....

Following a number of months of significant coolant loss after short journeys (2l after 10-20 mile max), replaced leaking water pump a couple of months back. Since then there has been a huge pressure release whenever I unscrew the header tank cap, accompanied by lots of bubbling. After a 200 mile round trip at the weekend (the longest journey I've done in my Elan for a year or more), I noticed the same, but this time the inside of the cap was also covered in a horrible thick brown gunk with the consistency of whipped cream. Also c. 0.5l water loss, and water has a strong hydrocarbon smell. Come to think of it, the car has had the occasional misfire and unusual smoky smell for last 6-12 months.

Going into Steve Williams for diagnosis and repair shortly, but now touch and go whether she'll be back for Hethel

Bad luck...

I'm sure your car doesn't like the big Lotus events...


Don't go to Steve thou.... I want him to do my gear box... when it arrives....


TTFN

[markv]

Bad luck...

I'm sure your car doesn't like the big Lotus events...

- sadly I think you're right - that will make 3 out of 3 big Lotus events where something has happened...

Don't go to Steve thou.... I want him to do my gear box... when it arrives....

- I'll keep my fingers crossed that it doesn't arrive until after he's done my head gasket then