Head gasket?

[66HertzClone]

I have a Keith Craft built 331 stroker in my clone. The engine has less than 2000 miles on it and has never overheated or even approached overheating. After one season of summer driving I installed a MassFlo EFI kit during the winter months. I was shocked to find that I had a head gasket failure when I restarted the engine in the spring of 2006. Keith Craft had used the graphite covered Ford brand head gaskets. After discovering the leak, I pulled both heads off and had them checked. There were no problems with the heads, the gaskets however measured .012 thicker where the longer head bolts pass thru than at the bottom of the gasket. The assumption was improper torque when the engine was assembled. I did have KC run the engine on their dyno before shipping since the engine would not be installed and run immediately upon delivery. As I took the engine apart I found very heavy rust sediment in the core, I broke a few tools trying to remove the drain plugs to remove the sediment. This was not possible, I did use a suction pump and kept filling the core with water and sucking out the water and sediment. After many, many repeats the water remained clear and little or no sediment was found.

I contacted KC about the gasket failure, they denied any fault, but were willing to send me replacement head gaskets, the FelPro version. I installed these last spring and the engine ran fine all season.

So I spent the winter installing power windows, key less entry, a F/River tilt column and cleaning up the mass of wiring and relays under the dash. Yesterday I had enough completed that I could start the engine and test my rewiring of the EFI harness. The engine started fine and surprise no trouble codes after moving close to fifty wires all around. I shut the engine off and proceeded to put away the tools used.

I checked the oil level later and found a little bit of water , no way, not again. The engine ran less than five minutes, all I wanted to do was run the MIL codes and make sure I had not missed something. I loosened the rad cap and heard a hiss, oh no, pressure in the cooling system. I'm thinking I've got another head gasket failure. I was so disgusted that I just turned off the lights and went in the house,

When I start to check and find out what has happened, I'm going to start with cylinder number six, it was the cylinder that failed last time. I wonder if the is a defect or machining problem with the deck of the block that is causing these failures. I was so, so careful when I assembled it last spring, I spent hours making sure everything was spotless. When I torqued the heads down I even went so far as to tighten in ten pound increments once over thirty pounds.

I have a kit on order from Lisle that will check the coolant for combustion byproducts. I'll use it before doing the compression test. Any thing I should look for now?

Oh by the way, the guy looking for a stroker, cross KC off the list.

 

[1320stang]

Okay, you installed the second set of gaskets, have you checked the deck for square? I have several friends that have had both street and race engines (about a dozen) built by KC with no failures.

I seem to recall you posting about this the first time and think I remember you accusing them of fault, and thinking of the whole flies, honey and vinegar thing. It doesn't sound like you have contacted KC this time about the problem before dragging his name to the internet in a discouraging way.

Having not owned a set of aluminum heads, isn't checking the torque on them after a few heat cycles recommended? I would think 5 minutes of idle running would bring the temp up to open the thermostat, or at least build some pressure up. If it sat all winter, condensate could build up in the crankcase if the system isn't closed, not running it long enough to evaporate the moisture out of it before putting it away could do this as well. I would do a leakdown test first to check for a blown gasket, if that is confrimed, then I think examining the deck would be the next course of action since the heads were fine.

 

[66HertzClone]

No, I did not check the decks for square, I would have hoped this was done when they built the engine. The original head gaskets were found to be thicker around the upper bolts than at the lower bolts, by 0.12. Had this not been the case I would have gone deeper in looking for the cause of the failure. The instructions for the engine which I carefully read made no mention of re torquing the head bolts. In my conversations with KC the first time around, they made no mention of it either. Do you recheck torque even when you use a no-re torquing required head gasket?

As far as condensation being the problem, I don't think so. The motor was last run in October, has sat unused since then. Condensation occurs when the air inside the engine is warmer than outside the engine, not likely since it hasn't run since October. Could it have occurred yesterday, again I doubt it, it ran five minutes or less, and the condensation would have occurred inside the valve covers and other faster cooling areas rather than in the engine oil in the given time period. If I had found it there days later I would suspect that is the case, but not in the short time between startup and oil check yesterday.

Did I drag his name around the INTERNET in a discouraging way? Maybe, if when the gasket failed last year he offered to cover the $283 in parts and shop work I spent, I would have kept my mouth shut. I did spent over $7000 for a stroker and even had it run the their dyno. I also have a water jacket filled with rusty sediment, was the block properly cleaned before the build? Could the sediment have been so densely packed that it did not wash out during the cleaning? Who knows, what I do have is an expensive engine I paid good money for that has some problems. No, I've not contacted them with the new problem and I wont until I know for sure what has happened.

 

[1966conv]

Any chance it's the intake gasket? If I'm reading your time frame correctly, you installed the EFI 1 year ago and just moved wiring this winter? After installing the EFI intake, how many times did you re-torque the bolts. On my aluminum intake, it took 3 times before they seemed to stay tight.

 

[SoCalCruising]

I also went through a compression leak issue with the Ford Racing graphite gaskets. Maybe just coincidence. When looking for a replacement, John at JMC said that he had some bad experience with the Felpro 1011-2 gaskets lately (which I had planned on using) and had been using Corteco, instead. No problems, so far, with the Corteco gaskets, but I have not put many miles on the motor yet with them. My cousin, the real mechanic in the family, tells me that I have to expect stuff like this when stepping up to high HP motors. I'm trying to develop a better attitude about it.

 

[66HertzClone]

Any chance it's the intake gasket? If I'm reading your time frame correctly, you installed the EFI 1 year ago and just moved wiring this winter? After installing the EFI intake, how many times did you re-torque the bolts. On my aluminum intake, it took 3 times before they seemed to stay tight.

Good point, however, I did have pressure in the radiator when I removed the cap. No way did the engine run long enough or get hot enough to create pressure there, the upper hose was warm at best. Since I don't have either a blower or a turbo, the pressure must have come from cylinder compression.

 

[1320stang]

Massflo EFI, does that replace the intake? This is unlikely, but if the block had been decked.... usually you angle mill the block side of the heads, then the intake face for correction so that an uncut intake works. But if the block had been decked and the heads left alone, an intake that hasn't been modifed could possibly force the heads apart on the inside face, like trying to wedge them apart, could this affect the head gaskets?

Anybody has a possibility of messing up, the only way to confirm this would be to measure the deck height of the unassembled engine as far as I'm aware. I highly doubt KC would put out a substandard product, but people make mistakes and KC doesn't work on every engine, I'm wondering if someone forgot to check a deck on a seasoned block. Just a thought......

 

[66HertzClone]

Good point, the records I have for the engine make no reference to decking the block. Originally the engine had a RPM Air Gap and a Speed Demon carb, I used that combination for the first year.

Near the end of that year I kept having to add coolant, and found it had been pushed out of the overflow tank all under the car. In the late fall, I did have a few instances of pressure in the cooling system after the car sat for days unused. It wasn't until I installed the MassFlo in the following spring that I put two and two together. I did have the problem before the manifold switch, no coolant in the crankcase but a pressure loss none the less.

You are correct, KC doesn't assemble every engine. not my expectation. However, how one handles a problem can make all the difference in the end. I've ordered a kit made by Lisle that will check for cumbustion by products in the coolant, I am also going to gently pressure test the cooling system. Hopefully its nothing, but on the surface things don't look very good.