question, surge, dropping oil pressure, losing coolant

[mob]

Alright so latley ive been losing coolant, I'll have to put a bottle in maybe after 2 weeks. And every once and a while when I start the car it blows out white smoke. No leaks anywhere, I've changed my oil about 3 times with it doing this and theres no coolant in it, and and no milk in it or under the cap.

No just this past week, when I bring my car to a stop and it idles, it has a surge, never had a surge before, and it will basically almost die on the 3 or 4th surge if I dont give it gas, it goes down to like 300 400 rpm. And just today I realized that my oil pressure was going from about the middle to the bottom red line in tune with the surging idle going up and down, only at idle though. The car runs perfectly fine, other then the idle issue. Whats going on? This dosen;t seem very good.

 

[TokyoJoe]

Did you perform any maintenance prior to all this? Is the car overheating at all?

 

[skunk21]

My best guess, you are burning the coolant. It hasn't gotten bad enough to get in the oil and white smoke is slight and clear sign the head gasket or maybe even the intake gasket is leaking and the coolant is getting into the cylinders. the surging idle could be a vacuum leak from said bad intake gasket, the car will run like crap if enough colant is getting burned. if the car is getting close to stalling the oil pressure will drop just like shutting it off. the pressure will surge noticabaly if the idle surge is dramatic enough my guess.

you need to do a pressure test first, then I would count on pulling the intake to check that and next the heads. If you had a cracked head you would have over heated by now and probally had some exhuast gases coming out the overflow tank. a cracked block/water jacket loss of power, overheat and the oil would have been a milk shake. If I'm wrong or off a little others will chime in. best of luck to you.

 

[ninety15.0]

That all sounds like good advice...

I definitely think the surging oil pressure is directly caused by the surging idle. Thats the nature of a mechanical oil pump. Pressure increases/decreases with revs. The idle surge is most likely a vac leak. Check all sealed areas with carb cleaner and note any RPM changes.

As for the coolant loss. You said you are blowing white smoke out of the exhaust once in a while. I seem to remember you doing a head swap recently, correct?

Did you have the heads checked out? Did you replace the stem seals and/or guides? Did you have the heads milled for flatness? What head gaskets did you use? Did you use studs in the corners of the lower intake manifold when you installed it? Did you use silicone on the lifter valley ends?

I would bet that if you answered no to some of the questions above...you are most likely leaking the coolant into the motor from the top end. as he said above...its not bad enough to get into the oil yet...but it probably will get there eventually.

While your motor is still in good shape i would pull the intake and re-seal it. Use studs in the corners to keep the gaskets in place and everything lined up. Make sure to use plenty of silicone on the lifter valley ends and a good gob in the corners.

report back after this and let us know how the surging and coolant consumption is. good luck man.

 

[mob]

K thanks guys, I did have a problem where one of the bolts broke connecting the upper and lower intake together, so it is missing one bolt. I was planning on getting a new intake, and redoing that whole top end part, and taking a look at the heads. I did do a head swap last year in February and the heads had supposedly been checked out by a shop, but I will admit I did not have them checked out.

Though I am confident that everything was sealed up right as I had (Joe)Jrichker at my house installing these with me. Thanks for the info fellas, just making sure the oil pressure wasent about to blowup my motor, but I will be getting it checked out ASAP.

 

[NKau]

It's natural for the car to blow out white smoke on startup; should just be fuel/condensation. It's when you are noticing white smoke with the car warmed up that there may be an issue. If the exhaust smells sweet or syrupy, you defnitely have coolant getting into your engine. If not, I wouldn't be getting too excited quite yet. A pressure check as someone else mentioned might be a good idea. If you know your intake isn't sealing properly, take care of that and go from there.

Park the car over cardboard to see if you can isolate coolant leaking from somwhere. If it's not going into your block, or out the exhaust, it has to be coming from somewhere else. The waterpump and overflow reservoir would be the first things I'd suspect.

 

[mob]

K thanks, I did notice that the surging was happening when the car was overheating which I figured was normal for a car to act funny if its over heating but then the oil pressure thing came up and scared me. But it does look like it is surging a little still with the car not overheating so I'll have to check that stuff out. I had just recently found a hole in my radiator so the radiator is new as of a month or so ago. I did do a compression test not too long ago and everything came out good.

 

[skunk21]

K thanks, I did notice that the surging was happening when the car was overheating which I figured was normal for a car to act funny if its over heating but then the oil pressure thing came up and scared me. But it does look like it is surging a little still with the car not overheating so I'll have to check that stuff out. I had just recently found a hole in my radiator so the radiator is new as of a month or so ago. I did do a compression test not too long ago and everything came out good.

compression test isn't going to find the coolant leak. you need to do a presure test on the coolant system, but before you can that you need to fix/replace the radiator.once that is done, put the pressure tester on and pump it up and look for external leaks if none and it's loosing pressure then you are pushing by a gasket. A hole in the rad will explain the loss of coolant and overheat, hopefully that all it is.