blown headgasket, but why?

[bgjohnson]

well i was driving and cruising for the last time out this year, figures. but anyways, i was cruising taking in the scenery and i'd came to a stop at a stop sign and got on it, and did it up to 3rd gear. now when i was going through third gear and felt a slight pop and hesitation at 4k and 5200. so i got out and turned my fuel pressure up to 41psi just in case i was running lean, i had it set at 39 psi before, and i also have 24# injectors and a 190LPH fuel pump , so i see no reason why it would be running lean in the first place. so anyways i test it some more and i think the hesitation lessened some, but i pulled into a parking lot to turn the FP up some more, and when i was backing up i romped it a bit and alot of smoke came out the back, so i was oh hell. so i got back to my house and let it idle and a steady cloud of smoke just kept comin out the back, and when i'd rev it it would put alot more smoke out. so tommorrow i'm gonna pull the o2's and spark plugs to see which bank and which cylinder it got to. so i guess i still don't know why i would blow a headgasket, they are the Ford Racing Graphite head gaskets which are suppose to be pretty good and it's not like i'm running high compression or a power adder. i just want to figure out why it did this so it doesn't happen again. all the mods are my sig, so if you have any suggestions please feel free to say somthing because i'm stumped for now.

 

[Michael Yount]

What color smoke - was it smoke or steam? Usually with a gasket blow that puts coolant in the cylinders you can very clearly smell the antifreeze in the exhaust - did that happen? Have you checked the oil - dipstick to see if there's coolant in the oil? How 'bout the coolant in the overflow - what's it look like?

 

[bgjohnson]

yeah i checked both, the oil was crystal clear and the over flow wasn't bubbling when it was running, and the coolant looks crystal clear too. it didn't run for very long after it happened. and honestly i've never smelled a blownheadgasket before, so wouldn't know what burning cooant smells like, it could very well be steam, all i smelled was a rich idle and a gas smell like always, but i don't think i smelled anything besides that, maybe a bit of a watery is smell. do you think it may not be a headgasket? possible a coolant leak in the intake? because it wasn't like, BAM smoke, kinda gradual, and i got on it while i thought it was blown and not to much came out the back. any other thoughts?

 

[Michael Yount]

'Burning' coolant smells just like non-burning coolant; the strong sweet smell of antifreeze would've been present in the steam cloud.

You never answered the question - what color was the smoke? There's a big difference between smoke and steam -- not difficult to discern.

If it's leaking into the cylinder one way to determine is to pull all 8 plugs and then turn the car over with the starter. If there's coolant in the cylinders - it will shoot out of the spark plug hole. Need someone else to hit the starter while you look if you don't have a remote starter switch.

If no coolant, you'll need the plugs out anyway - next two things I'd do are to pull the codes, and run a cranking compression check.