[Guest]

I just finished putting my valve cover gaskets on. I'm letting it warm up after putting it all back together and I notice the white smoke. It's cold outside and it's been doing this recently, but now it's smoking a little more than usual and it's doing it warm too. It smells like there's definitely antifreeze in there. Now my GOD D#%$ head gasket's blown too! AHHHHH! I really really don't want to be doing any more work myself right now and it's gonna be like at least 800 bucks at a shop. THIS SUCKS!

 

[Mike 94PGT]

I just finished putting my valve cover gaskets on. I'm letting it warm up after putting it all back together and I notice the white smoke. It's cold outside and it's been doing this recently, but now it's smoking a little more than usual and it's doing it warm too. It smells like there's definitely antifreeze in there. Now my GOD D#%$ head gasket's blown too! AHHHHH! I really really don't want to be doing any more work myself right now and it's gonna be like at least 800 bucks at a shop. THIS SUCKS!

Before jumping to that conclusion, have a compression test, cooling system pressure-test and maybe a leakdown test done. It sounds like possibly a headgasket but there may be another answer.

Also, if the engine does need this work, think about what performance upgrades you can do while this far into it...head & manifold porting, valve job, surface the heads to bump compression a bit etc.

 

[Stage36]

... surface the heads to bump compression a bit etc.

No, no, no, bad, bad, bad!!!!:sigh:

are you telling him to mill his head??? his deck???
okay, the porting and stuff, your basic head mods...yeah but why add all that power to take it away again???

on a pushrod engine, you can mill the head to raise compression. for every 0.010" you mill, you get about a .1 point gain in compression (usually). since most heads can only take 0.050" in milling, you can only bump your compression by a half a point...

but wait!!! DOHC engines dont have pushrods!!! well why cant we mill OHC heads? heres why...

milling the heads on an OHC engine decreases the distance between the crank and cam sprockets, thus throwing off timing, cam phasing (theres that term again). what you would have gained in power from compression is lost many times over by your ill-timed valve train.

but yes do a compression test. and a head gasket isnt that hard to replace.