So I haven't driven the Evo in about 3 months, and I go out and start it today and notice some white smoke coming out of the hood vent. I popped the hood and saw that there's coolant slowly seeping out of one of the bolts on the exhaust manifold. The CEL is on, and I let it run for about 10 min or so and it didn't overheat. From researching it looks like either a blown head gasket or a cracked head. The car is pretty much stock, minus the UICP and LICP and an MBC set to 19lbs. I rarely drive the car hard. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

Man, it always seems like something goes wrong when you start/drive it after a time sitting like that. It is probably a headgasket, that's the usual suspect for that. I highly doubt the head cracked.

Oh well, a good chance to pull the head, do headstuds, cams, springs/retainers, and headgasket!

 

yep, sounds like a blown headgasket or crakced head. hopefully it'll just be the head gasket though??? do you ever beat on the car before it's fully warmed up???? If so it is possible to crack the head

 

That's a wierd place to see coolant. If its seeping past the exhaust manifold bolts, then that means its seeping past the exhaust manifold gasket. Doesn't make sense.

 

WOW, that sucks. Sounds like a head gasket. Get out and drive that thing more often!!!

 

Is smoke coming out of the exhaust?

 

do any of these studs run through a water passage? i'm not sure how an evo head it set up exactly but to me it just sounds like that particular stud runs through a coolant passage and it is seeping past the stud.

pull off the manifold, take out that stud, RTV silicone it up and put it back in. see if that fixes it.

 

yah check all the coolant flow places, freeze plugs, turbo coolant lines, see if your oil smells like rotten eggs from coolant getting in it.. hmm not sure if that helps but just look around good

 

Sounds most likely like a head gasket. That is one of the usualy signs. Is there white smoke coming out of the exhaust also? If so its a head gasket.

 

Did you get any head work done?? If you port the exhaust port too high it will cause the metal to be too thin. This may eventual breaks through and starts to spray coolant from the top of the port. You can tell if this happen to you by pulling the exhaust manifold off and use a coolant pressure tester. The exhaust port is different then the DSM head. The ports are moved up with less material to port. If the porter hasn’t ported very many Evo heads he would not know this. Let us know when you find out what happen.

 

Well I guess I just gotta start taken stuff apart and see what I find... Thanks to all for your input, I'll keep this thread posted.

 

I have read a thread previously about another guy suffering the same fate as you. His problem was that the studs on the cylinder head were leaking coolant. He put in some new studs with some high temp silicone and problem solved.

just thought this might help.

 

head gasket