how is it ****ing possible!!!!

[king_j]

i had steam/smoke coming from my exhaust and so i thought hg has gone, and then thought f*** it replace the head anyway, so i bought a replacement head from el gringo (who had stripped everything off it, so after a swap over of some parts) the head and new gasket was on, started the car the other day took it to work all was ok, started it this morning drove it home, left it in the drive way did some work on it, topped up the water etc and then the revs dropped (like it did with the old head) and then they picked up again, i then thought uh oh, went round and there was a little bit of steam from the exhaust, i almost cried, and then the revs dropped again and again and again and after each drop the steam would come out, till it just steamed all the time i reved it etc and it seams to go away, took it out for a drive round the corner but couldnt see if any steam was on the road where i had been driving (not the easiest way to check i know) stopped the car got out had a look and yup little puffs of steam/white smoke

what the f*** can it be, im hardly running any boost at all, is it worth giving the head bolts another tighten?

would you get smoke like this is it was spitting out fuel? or if the turbo was smoking?


im really stuck.

HELP PLEASE.

[tim rome]

if your hg has gone you should get oily deposits in your rad header tank and if you remove your oil filler cap and look at the inside of it you should see milky colour deposit

[tim rome]

oh yeah, if you are idling and you have the aircon on, revs drop and then pick up again every several seconds, cant help with smoke/steam out of the zorst though

[voodoo_melon]

remove your oil filler cap and look at the inside of it you should see milky colour deposit
Not necessarily. If it's blown between the cylinder and water channel it won't affect the oil at all. If it's burning water it would indicate to me that that's what's happened, it did that on mine and smoked loads. Oil was fine though.

[docwra]

Not necessarily. If it's blown between the cylinder and water channel it won't affect the oil at all. If it's burning water it would indicate to me that that's what's happened, it did that on mine and smoked loads. Oil was fine though.

Same with my Saab. Sounds horribly like what happened to my Saab as well ........... :cry:

Good luck mate - I reckon you need it :)

[king_j]

right quick update only does it on tick over, took it for a blast and she was gr8 at the level of boost she is at (nothing special but better than b4 anyway). and stopped in the drive and no steam what so ever, well except the steam off the outside of the zost from the rain but nowt exciting.

so what ya think?


also keeping in mind its a renault laguna it dont have aircon, even the radio wasnt on just idleing engine only

i love this car looks mint with what ive done to it etc etc, but i can see the 200sx coming all the sooner if anything else happens

[king_j]

should you ever have to re torque the head bolts after fitting???

right, i did a compression test and got 12 bar flat along the board (should be between 12-14)

so that showed me jak s*** then i thought about the problem...

now n/a engines have to suck air in for their breathing, where as turbos have it forced in....

both are true, but then i thought right so i have heay smoke when idleing but not when under load and boosting......

ok what happens at idle, well theres no boost produced by the turbo so the engine is sucking for its life to get some air into it, this meaning the vacum in the cylinders was sucking in water under the gasket.... yet under boost it was pressurising the cylinders and forcing any water back (should have seen it in the head tank but nothing was obvious)

so my conclusion was i had not tightened the head bolts enough, so i stripped the inlet manifold off and torqued the head bolts a little bit more, just enough to make them make the cracking noise (as the unstuck from the surface) did this twice, then ran the car for 5 min at idle and the temp guage went up to normal but no steam out of exhaust....

i guess only time will tell but looks to be ok...

thought it was strange when the comp test came back ok....

[king_j]

grrr just been to a trip to the shops in it came back left it to idle for about 30 secs and it started again arrrgggg will it ever end.

[chris250]

are you actually loosing water from your rad?

[Sideways Danny]

the idling problem is highly likely the idle valve being full of gunk or a temp sensor, french cars are renowned for this. When you changed the head over did you get it skimmed or at least checked for flatness? ally heads do tend to warp quite easily :( especially if the head bolts sre not removed in the right order

[2 Black Lines]

Ever tried Radseal or something of that ilk? Its a long shot but you could have a slightly porous head, the radseal could give a tempory cure.