324vr4
Well-known member
I went to the car wash the other day on the GVR4 and washed the engine bay to rid it from an old oil leak that caused everything to be coated...anyways, I drove it for about 20 min prior to washing it and the temps outside were fair at 55 and a beautiful sunny day. I parked inside the wash bay and opened the hood and started rinsing off the motor without pressing the nozzle for just it's low pressure spray...I cleaned the VC area and head and the firewall and k-member without thinking the water might infiltrate the motor...I let it dry for about 10 min and hopped back in and went for another quick drive about 5 miles to "dry" the outside of the car and whatnot...as I started to slow and turn off I noticed an abundance of white smoke billowing out of the tail pipe.. At first I thought it was only dust but noticed it more once driving home. So I assumed I sucked in some water in the turbo inlet and would let it dry before I drove much more...
Yesterday I went back to see if everything was okay (car washed a week before) and started it up and after about a minute I saw more white smoke and held my hand at the exhaust exit and saw water all over my hand...so my buddy and I took off the turbo intake pipe and saw that it was fine and spun freely and was clean so I knew that wasn't the problem. We took the VC off and instantly noticed water on the head all over...looking like it was infiltrated from the crusty VC gasket. We drained a little oil out of the oil pan and also notice a little bit of water in that too and will be draining that ASAP so the bearings retain their strength and cleanliness but my question is how that hell did the water infiltrate the combustion chamber?! On a side note we had a couple rubber blockers cracked off the IM and that may have been another spot where the water got in but besides draining the contaminated oil and putting new thicker stuff in to coat everything again, is there anything else besides a leak down test we can try to help determine where this water is coming from?! The radiator is still full and so that's why I'm HOPING its not the head gasket but this is on a new motor with less than 600 miles on it. We have a MLS head gasket and will look to make sure its all torqued within spec but this would be our 2nd time re-torquing and checking the ARP head bolts.
If anyone has any suggestions please let me know what my options are and what to look for...thanks in advance!
-Lieb-
Yesterday I went back to see if everything was okay (car washed a week before) and started it up and after about a minute I saw more white smoke and held my hand at the exhaust exit and saw water all over my hand...so my buddy and I took off the turbo intake pipe and saw that it was fine and spun freely and was clean so I knew that wasn't the problem. We took the VC off and instantly noticed water on the head all over...looking like it was infiltrated from the crusty VC gasket. We drained a little oil out of the oil pan and also notice a little bit of water in that too and will be draining that ASAP so the bearings retain their strength and cleanliness but my question is how that hell did the water infiltrate the combustion chamber?! On a side note we had a couple rubber blockers cracked off the IM and that may have been another spot where the water got in but besides draining the contaminated oil and putting new thicker stuff in to coat everything again, is there anything else besides a leak down test we can try to help determine where this water is coming from?! The radiator is still full and so that's why I'm HOPING its not the head gasket but this is on a new motor with less than 600 miles on it. We have a MLS head gasket and will look to make sure its all torqued within spec but this would be our 2nd time re-torquing and checking the ARP head bolts.
If anyone has any suggestions please let me know what my options are and what to look for...thanks in advance!
-Lieb-