Need some help with my friends car ('89 Probe).

So here's the story. My friends old engine in his Probe took a **** and he bought one on eBay with 70k miles on it along with a rebuilt cylinder head. We got the engine in, filled it with fluids and were going to start it and it cranked a couple times then just stopped because the cylinders were loaded with coolant and it just spewed coolant out the exhaust manifold.

So, off came the head and we replaced the cheap ass head gasket with a Fel-Pro. Still leaked coolant. Head came back off and was taken to the local machine shop and inspected, came back good. Next thing we tried was new headbolts (forgot to get them the first two times ). So we have another new Fel-Pro head gasket, installed a new intake gasket, and new headbolts. We followed all torque specs and pattern for the head bolts and the son of a bitch is still leaking coolant.

We are trying to rule out the possibility of having a fugged up block because the guy who sold him the engine said he had it in a car of his and it ran fine. I don't think the guy is a liar either because he gave my friend his number and was even offering to buy a brand new cylinder head if the previous head was warped or something.

To figure out if there is something wrong with the block, we did a cold compression test and got the following numbers:

#1 186psi
#2 170psi
#3 180psi
#4 180psi

We haven't yet been able to warm the engine up and do a compression test because the ignition module on the distributor went out and we aren't getting any spark or fuel, but that's a whole other situation we have to fix.

He's tried asking if anyone might know on a Probe forum, but there isn't much going on over there. So, I came to see if anyone might now what's up here.

If the block is damaged, it probably only would have happened during shipping somehow. It was shipped via DHL. Is there any way we could go after the shipping company if this is true?

Sorry for the long post, just been trying to get this car running for a month now and would really like to see it on the road again.

90mustangGT said:

If it's not comming from the head, then it must be from the block. Did you inspect the cylinder walls? How about the deck surface, is it really flat?

It may be getting compression, but which cylinder fills with coolant?

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Cylinder walls appeared to be fine. We put a straight edge across the top of the block and didn't see any visable warpage. We know that cylinder 2 has been getting coolant. Cylinder 3 got some as well, I believe. If 1 and 4 had coolant, it might have been very little. Once we get the ignition problem figured out, we are going to inspect that further to see exactly which cylinders are getting coolant.

The first time the engine got coolant in it, it was only a few minutes after we filled it until we tried to start it and cylinders 2 and 3 were flooded with so much coolant the engine stopped cranking. Wouldn't that have to be one hell of a crack or warp to leak that much coolant?

Forgot to mention that no coolant is getting into the oil either.

Well today we got the new distributor and got it running again. Warmed it up and did another compression test. Numbers look ok to me.

#1 172 psi
#2 175 psi
#3 190 psi
#4 185 psi

Do these numbers look like the ones of a block or head that has a crack or is warped?

RMODEL65 said:

are u following the proper torque sequence or are u just bolting the head down?

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Followed proper torque sequence according to the Haynes manual.

jrichker said:

Does the engine use a water cooled EGR spacer like the 5.0? If so, look for leaks at the intake manifold and EGR spacer.

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No, but it does use a water cooled IAC.

I doubt that's the problem though because if that was leaking it would be running out of the TB and into the intake tube since the TB is pointed at a downward angle.

90_Red_LX said:

Did you put a new headgasket after pulling the head each time? I always thought they were trash once the torque was released from them.

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Every time. Brand new Fel-Pro.

We put a coolant system pressurizer on today to see if we could maybe detect where the leak was coming from by seeing how it leaked into the cylinder through the spark plug hole. There was no leak until the exhaust valve opened. So we took the head back off and looked through the center of the head where the majority of the coolant flows through and there is a large gouge next to the cylinder #2 exhaust port. Definitely gotta be the culprit here. The reason the machine shop didn't find it is because they didn't even pressure test the head.

Now, we are going to take all the new parts off this head and put them on a good head and should be good to go. Thanks for the help.