Head gasket - Updated

[Boostaddict]

Thanks for all the info and photos benny, will help out heaps!


So... tonight I started up the car after it had sat for 48 hours... lots of steam out of the exhaust (not a cool evening) ... concerned me, looked in to the coolant overflow bottle... saw several bubbles rise.... does this mean what I think it does...

Mate I've heard stories where shops have just cleaned the head surface with a gasket cleaning drill and bolted a new head gasket on and put it all back together...... Without sending the head to be machined. WTF!!

You may have a warped head where it blew the last time and they didn't get it machined properly !!

I would be back on the blower to the shop 9am tomorrow morning!!!

[TomTom]

Thanks for all the info and photos benny, will help out heaps!


So... tonight I started up the car after it had sat for 48 hours... lots of steam out of the exhaust (not a cool evening) ... concerned me, looked in to the coolant overflow bottle... saw several bubbles rise.... does this mean what I think it does...

Dude that's terrible! What level is it sitting at within the tank?

[senator]

Thanks for all the info and photos benny, will help out heaps!


So... tonight I started up the car after it had sat for 48 hours... lots of steam out of the exhaust (not a cool evening) ... concerned me, looked in to the coolant overflow bottle... saw several bubbles rise.... does this mean what I think it does...

Was the Thermostat changed?

Sorry if I missed it, but who did the work?

[BlackSTI]

Mate I've heard stories where shops have just cleaned the head surface with a gasket cleaning drill and bolted a new head gasket on and put it all back together...... Without sending the head to be machined. WTF!!

You may have a warped head where it blew the last time and they didn't get it machined properly !!

I would be back on the blower to the shop 9am tomorrow morning!!!

I know the head was sent away for 'reconditioning' and I saw they before they went back in, looked like they had work done on them (I think there are pictures in this thread), so I am sure they would have machined them. Fingers crossed.

Got on the mechanic today, he wants me to bring it in for a look over. Hopefully will get time on thursday (In the mean time i'll be back to the slow lib )

Was the Thermostat changed?

Sorry if I missed it, but who did the work?

Yup thermostat changed, as well as a few other things such as the top radiator hose (Can't remember the rest off the top of my head).

Work was done by John French Motors at Woolongabba, Brisbane. I'm sure he will get it sorted as he had good reviews and is a subaru / alfa specialist.

Dude that's terrible! What level is it sitting at within the tank?

Thanks mate, it'll all get sorted. At cool its sitting at 'full', I will take note after a drive tonight, although I have never seen it close to the lid.

[BlackSTI]

Had to drive the lib back from up north last night to home last night, got a CEL on the way, "P0420" from memory, CAT under efficiency. I wondering this has anything to do with me installing a wideband AFR ...

[KiDo_Tuning]

Had to drive the lib back from up north last night to home last night, got a CEL on the way, "P0420" from memory, CAT under efficiency. I wondering this has anything to do with me installing a wideband AFR ...

Nope, normal code with a dump pipe fitted on stock tune

My other thought was if the workshop remembered to fit the radiator fan plugs after the work.

[<GB>]

Thanks for all the info and photos benny, will help out heaps!


So... tonight I started up the car after it had sat for 48 hours... lots of steam out of the exhaust (not a cool evening) ... concerned me, looked in to the coolant overflow bottle... saw several bubbles rise.... does this mean what I think it does...

Water is a part of the catalytic system working correctly, how are you sure its excessive? I have seen water in the muffler systems

do a tk test on the coolant system, maybe needs bleeding up.

have you done a pressure test leave it pressurised for a few hours and seen it drop? pull the plugs out and you might blow water out the spark plug holes!!

[BlackSTI]

Nope, normal code with a dump pipe fitted on stock tune

My other thought was if the workshop remembered to fit the radiator fan plugs after the work.

Yeah radiator fans seem to be working fine (keep kicking on and off).

Water is a part of the catalytic system working correctly, how are you sure its excessive? I have seen water in the muffler systems

do a tk test on the coolant system, maybe needs bleeding up.

have you done a pressure test leave it pressurized for a few hours and seen it drop? pull the plugs out and you might blow water out the spark plug holes!!

It was blowing steam for nearly up to 5 minutes and was maybe double the height of the car.

If I see anymore issues i'll look in to those tests thanks.

[BlackSTI]

So time for another update.

Mechanic had the car for a day, could not replicate the bubbling (or the steam) and did not find any outstanding issues. He said if I have any slight concerns to just drop by and get him to have a look (fingers crossed I won't need to). So far I haven't seen any issues since the other weekend.

I also have got my AEM AFR logging to the tactrix standalone (pin 8 trick), took me a while to realize I have to disconnect the car end of the wire as it was putting out a constant 12v, which would obviously ruin the 5v scaling from the tactrix. Big thanks to Benny for helping me out with this! Also luckily I had my math wiz gf to help modify the scaling value slightly.

The tactrix is now under the cup holders in the center console (with the use of an extension cord), which makes it much easier to log etc, just have the usb cable coming out of the middle console.

Next up in a few weeks is to wire in the AFR fail-safe to cut boost if it gets out of the normal range, I will probably use benny's installation as a reference

Also have put on Kido's v1 tune, so far its much 'smoother' than before, so hopefully I can work with him to now hone it down to perfection.

[bigBADbenny]

Sensational

[Monkey]

BlackSTI, can you share what the cost was to fix?

I may have a similar problem (with only 68xxx kms!) - no symptoms whatsoever (fuel consumption good, no steam/smoke, no smell/sound, not using oil or coolant to my knowledge, performance excellent), but oil detected in coolant tonight by a couple of the gurus on the forum at a brief meet up.

I've only had the car 4 months .... I'm devastated as I love the car but can't afford to fix as we've just bought our first house - I bought this car because of the low kms / excellent condition / unmodified with the expectation I wouldn't be spending anything on it for the next 5 years.

I'm praying someone has discovered oil in their coolant and it's turned out to be something relatively minor (eg. flush & hose changes). Will take to a Subaru mechanic tomorrow (Cromwood in Melb).

It's uncanny that there's 4-5 of us on the Forum with the same problem with tbSTIs in July-Aug this year - almost like they've been programmed to fail !!

[BlackSTI]

BlackSTI, can you share what the cost was to fix?

I may have a similar problem (with only 68xxx kms!) - no symptoms whatsoever (fuel consumption good, no steam/smoke, no smell/sound, not using oil or coolant to my knowledge, performance excellent), but oil detected in coolant tonight by a couple of the gurus on the forum at a brief meet up.

I've only had the car 4 months .... I'm devastated as I love the car but can't afford to fix as we've just bought our first house - I bought this car because of the low kms / excellent condition / unmodified with the expectation I wouldn't be spending anything on it for the next 5 years.

I'm praying someone has discovered oil in their coolant and it's turned out to be something relatively minor (eg. flush & hose changes). Will take to a Subaru mechanic tomorrow (Cromwood in Melb).

It's uncanny that there's 4-5 of us on the Forum with the same problem with tbSTIs in July-Aug this year - almost like they've been programmed to fail !!

Mine cost a fair bit to fix (~$5500), because they did a few extra things, new clutch, timing belt kit, water pump, hoses, new oil sump (a bit of metal had broken off an internal mount), a few other things I can't remember at the moment.

From what I've read of your posts (and photo) I wouldn't be too worried. Once the coolant bottle starts bubbling / pushing coolant out I would be going to the mechanic ASAP. Keep in mind I'm still new to this all....

It is strange that a lot are starting to do them all at once.... makes me wonder if the stock gaskets etc can't deal with the extra power or they had a bad batch / fault from factory. Hopefully no one else has any issues for a while!

[Monkey]

Thanks for the info!

[PoidaGT]

I was quoted $3000 by MSR to redo the head gaskets and an extra $2000 for rings and bearings.

[Newbie GT]

I was quoted $3000 by MSR to redo the head gaskets and an extra $2000 for rings and bearings.

3k just for HG ? Upgraded studs or cosworth HG?