I think I blew a head gasket at the track.

Last Friday, I after making a few passes, my car starting spewing coolant out of my overflow tank.

It wouldn't do it with just the E-water pump running. But w/ the car running, the car would just start pumping coolant into the overflow tank, until it starting spewing coolant out. It did it worse at RPM. If you took the overflow cap off and put your hand over it, you could feel pressure. Also had a faint smell of exhaust coming through it as well.

This was my first time running the 150 jets. I have about 3k on the heads/ARP bolts/Felpro head gaskets. I tightened them to the ARP spec when I installed them and never touched them since.

Is it possible the ARP bolts backed out over time from not re-torquing, and the extra cylinder pressure finally took it's tole. Or perhaps it was some detonation?

 

I have always been told you do not have to retighten head bolts, especially the ARP. Combo motorsports even told me that. So I bet on detonation.

 

yea, no need to retorque them. I know you ran race gas and pulled timing on that 150, right

 

Errr...ummmm, I was running 94 and pulling 3 degrees.

Think that coulda caused it?

I have no problem with pulling timing, but I'd HATE to have to run race gas w/ the 150 jets. If detonation was the cause, do you think just pulling maybe 9 degrees would be enough?

I'm still not 100% positive it was the head gasket. I'm gonna pull the plugs and see if any look steam cleaned. If so, well...that answers that. If not, I'm gonna get one of those special radiator caps and see if I can presurize the cooling system and see if any pressure comes out of the spark plug holes.

Anything else I can test to check the head gaskets without pulling the heads?

 

check oil for water/coolant

white smoke out the back

thats all i can think of