The car: evo 8. The problem: i'd been having troubles with rough start ups lately, tracing back either to a wiring problem, starter going, or something to do with the cold, coolant was a tad below the low line so i added some and everything seemed to be good for the last couple days, been between -10 and -20. typical day, turn on, warm up, pull onto the hwy and into second gear driving normally, and pop, coolant all over the windshield, smoke everywhere, so i pull into a parking lot. real dark, real cold, cant see anything besides coolant everywhere. pour some water into my rad, works its way through the system and leaks out underneath somewhere, seems to be exhaust manifold area. I'll trailer it home somewhere tomorrow so i can get underneath and have a better look and keep this updated.
If anyone had similar experiences or wisdom to share feel free to post away at things to look at. Rad, cap, hoses seem to be fine. friends mechanic father threw out freeze plug and headgasket. Help the canadian evos out, thanks boys.

 

Probably one of the hoses going to the turbo. BTW, I wouldn't even think of putting plain water into an engine at those ambient temperatures.

 

Agree with barney....I blew the coolant return line from the turbo over this past summer. The lines are rubber and will deteriorate over time. Your winters are pretty damn cold and extreme temperature swings certainly don't prolong the life of those lines. The fix was easy enough...the cleanup was another story. My line blew up all over the intake so coolant was sucked through...didn't make it past the intercooler, but the cleanup process made for a nice project, one I wouldn't want to deal with during winter. Check those lines and good luck

 

Dude - 20? And here in MA I'm complaining about 20. Good luck sir.

 

Damn and Im freezing my @ss off with 50f.

 

Sorry buds, in Canada, im all celsius. thanks for the warning barney! that could have been bad, we were thinking rad cap blew first from the angle everything came through the vent to the window, was doing 60-40 distilled water hoping we could manage a few blocks home, good leak underneath so we ran coolant through to avoid any freezing. ill update when i can.

 

okay, here;s the update this cold morning with my tinkering, wish i was a mechanic. directly below the exhaust manifold on the block are 4 holes that have press fittings it looks like, seems like freeze plugs, the furthest right is missing and coolant leaks from there. i have no experience with these, so ill do some digging on here and hopefully someone who has dealt with these can offer some advice for procedure. hopefully its not a much more serious problem that caused this to happen.

 

Im noy exactly sure on these cars but you might have to pull the engine to replace that freeze plug. I'm sure others will confirm though.

 

Good to youtube and type in "replacing freeze plugs". I don't know if it necessary but I generally use a little rtv.

 

Before you simply replace the freeze plug, I would look into what caused it to blow out in the first place or else you may find yourself replacing it again down the road.

 

Good thing Freeze plug is easy to replace and you don't need RTV for it.
It being that cold I would do pure Anti-Freeze.

 

Actually pure antifreeze will freeze at 10 degrees F. You need to add water. Probably, for the very cold temperatures being experienced by the OP, about 40% water.

 

Yup we hit -40 (c/f doesn't matter, oddly same temp at that point) before wind chill up here and I run 60/40 coolant/water and I haven't had a problem at that temp. But I would definitely do a pressure test after you install new plug. Freeze plugs shouldn't pop out when your at operating temp unless your coolant was pressurized for some reason.

 

has anyone installed or know someone who installed a block heater? would be helpful at times, though the mitsu dealership doesn't think they exist.

 

They exist but not oem anymore, mitsubishi stopped making them so you have to buy the zero start brand. I was looking into it for awhile cuz it's alaska but I found a few posts where they were popping out and causing major issues and none that had not problems with them. So I asked on the forum got no response and called stm in New York and they told me they don't run any winterization gear. So I didn't feel like taking the chance on my car, so I just put a battery maintainer and oil pan pad on. If you decide to put one on let me know how it works out. But they don't go in the freeze plug you popped out, they go in the 2nd from the left.