My motors always were more tolerant to detonation when I ran with blown headgaskets. They were always faster.

 

^

 

She cleaned up well:

 

You must be kidding. Do tell us how a motor can make more power with a blown head gasket?

 

All back together and ready to go back in.

knock on wood, but I'm still utterly amazed I'm still on the factory shortblock after all I put this car through.

 

Looks very clean. Are you guys doing all the work?

Any further thoughts on the det? Maybe something to do with the blown HG? Maybe the "det" sound was really the sound of combustion gases blowing into the coolant passage(s)?

 

Machine shop rebuilt the head and hot-tanked it, etc

We put everything back together and cleaned the rest.

My motor had a leaking main seal and a leaking oil pan so oil was everywhere, all OEM never been off, at 'only' 62k.

However I put this car through hell and back so nothing like that really surprises me.

As far as the det, we'll see when I get it all back together. Not sure about if it was the sound of the gases blowing into the coolant passages, unless that also sounds like a bunch of ball bearings flying around in the engine bay as well.

btw, it looks like I killed yet another 6 speed. Drained it before removing and all the oil was burnt and black and tons of shavings came out. It was making a god awful noise before but we thought it was the clutch. Thankfully we are finally swapping my built 5 speed in.

This TRE 6speed lasted 32k miles. The OEM 6 speed melted 4th at 30k miles. I'm happy I am finally putting a real trans in the car.

 

The fact that the motor has held up under all that abuse must be attributed to the great tune it had. If I were you I'd keep that tuner you have.

 

Regarding your 6-speed, were you running a cooler on this one?

 

You can't be serious... GST aka Bryan IS his own tuner.

 

I know that. Bryan understood what I was saying.

 

 

Of course he's not serious, he was being factitious.

 

I want E-85, when will it be more readily available?

 

No I never got around to putting the cooler on, however this one was only used at the track twice in it's life, where the first was 20+.