All:

Well, after 3 years of owning the car and racing it several times, I've finally got my first maintenance problem with the car..

I had just finished racing a Mustang Cobra (03-04) when I stopped at a light. I started seeing smoke come from under the hood of the car. I quickly pulled over and turned the car off. Popped the hood and saw coolant all over the place. Some of it on the back firewall, near hoses, etc.. I looked under the car and saw it leaking down the middle near the passenger's side front wheel on the backside. The car idles fine, but the temperature will rise quickly (obviously since the coolant is low). No visible smoke coming from the tailpipe (thank God).

Any advice on what people think it may be? I doubt it's a water-pump since the car idles fine. Unless it's the main crank seal that connects the water pump. I checked the upper radiator hose and it's fine. The top of the radiator looks fine too.

Nevertheless, I got it towed to the dealer. Hopefully, they'll fix it under warranty..

-M

 

GL man I hope it turns out ok, I hear Mitsu is a pain to deal with for warranty work

 

Good luck with getting the dealership to do it... It seems like it could possibly be the head gasket or the water pump is leaking like a SOB. Have you had your 60k or are you close to it? Also if the water pump blew out it wouldnt do anything to the idle

 

sounds to me like you are suffering from water pump failure

 

my car did this, if you look on the back side of the engine their is a coolant line that comes off the head, it is the drivers side of the car. a real pain in the *** to change. it goes from the head to the intake. hope this helps.

 

...head gasket?

 

ok...i know the location of the leak is wrong from where this is but look anyway.

When I had my 05' there was a recall on the rubber hose that ran to the turbo, it went, metal--->rubber, w/ a 90 degree bend--->metal. Check that hose, it blew on mine. It was dark so I couldnt see where it was leaking at the time. I got the recall paperwork in the mail 2 weeks AFTER it happened....

Its worth a shot, and its a easy fix if thats what happened.

 

Potential headgasket leading to waterpump failure or freeze plug dislodgement.

Waterpump is $175 list.

 

Yea, I'm thinking this is the problem.

A couple weeks ago, I took my car to get tuned for race gas. Tuning Tech asked me if I had ARP studs on the car. I didn't.

Last night was the coolest night and the car was running really strong. I think that the boost crept up higher than the tune and caused the head to lift. This sucks.

I'll update when the dealer looks at it (who surely won't fix it under warranty). I'm going to have to get the car towed to Tuning Tech or RRE for the fix - watch..

-M

 

+1 head gasket

 

you don't have cams, so your head has never been opened? ...How much boost are you running? and what mods again?

 

No cams. I'm running 25psi, but it was cold last night - and with a manual boost controller, it could've been higher.

Only mods are headers, TBE, boost controller.

-M

 

I got ~47k miles on the car, so no 60k service yet.

-M

 

do a leak down test,but it sounds like your freeze plug cost my friend 300 to fix...

 

Got a call from the dealer.

He told me that the water pump was bad. They did a compression check and the head gasket is fine. Here's the catch. They told me to come there and put the cat back on the car in order to get it fixed under warranty. They won't touch the car unless I do that. Then there is the question about the Megan headers I have on the car. He suggested removing that too. At this point, there is too much to remove just to get a waterpump fixed. I'd rather just take it to TT and have them fix the car and pay.

What do you guys think?

-M