Hey guys, I'm just looking for some advice. My car was down in jersey for the weekend getting the turbo installed along with other things. When it was done, it was boosting great, everything was fine. About 30-45 minutes later I start getting predetonation. After pulling over, I found my radiator hose came off the head to the engine. This caused predet and blew a head gasket. Granted its all repairable and joe is doing a great job. My question is could anyone come up with reasons why the hose from the radiator came off the engine? Any extra precautions that can be done to prevent this from happening again?

 

maybe just maybe when they installed the turbo they forgot to put the hose back on properly.

 

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Now I don't feel so stupid!! I finished my turbo install at 12:30am one sturday night. Driving home from my buddies house in the Cascade mountians, I was like hell yeah!!! The car was great..new turbo kicked *** I thought over the old T25. Then Oh NO!!! The temps shot up in the red, steam billowed from under the hood. Sh&t I forgot to tighten the radiator hose it was just being held on by the beaded end pipe. (the sad part was I didnt even realize this untill the next day) I was lucky and didnt blow my head gasket. I believe I did lift the head a little and got some oil in my coolant. But no blown gasket....shes been running great forever now with no overheating problems or burning coolant/oil out the tailpipe. I just read that and slapped my head and went "DOH!"

 

What octane fuel and what psi were you running? Not to mention, was the FMU hooked up properly with the correct disk?

 

93 octane, it was stock psi, around 5ish, and i'm not sure about the FMU, i'll ask him about it, but he'll probably be going over everythign again now anyway since the entire thing has to come apart to open up the engine, thanks

 

well after going through everything and taking the head off,
the head gasket was intact ,and the head was warped slightly
to about .65mm as to the factory tolerence of .2mm
not a bad fix
the hose clamp and/or hose wasnt on properly causeing it to blow off at higher temps.
the car was ran for a wile afterwords and the block over heated causing the predet. (not fuel related) and warped the head slightly.
the head has to be redecked and thats about it

sheer dumb luck that i over looked something so small that caused a problem that was large in the relation of the mess up
in no way is RRM responsible for anything that happend to his car
im doing my best to get the problem resolved and his car back to him
head machining should be taking place tomorrow
and i shoudl have it all back together in about a day

 

alright guys, we solved the problem and everything is gonna be ok, i jsut want ot clear some things up

#1. This issue does not reflect Road Race Motorsports AT ALL. I will stand by my word that they are THE BEST automotive company I have ever had to deal with. They are in the best interest of the customer and their products are of the highest quality. Their turbo system is flawless. And I would recommend it to anyone thinking of purchasing it.

#2 The guy working on my car, joe has to be the easiest guy to work with. If all mechanics were like him I would be heaven. A simple error occured that I can assure anyone won't happen again. He knows the car inside and out. I would still recommend him to anyone who wants a turbo installed on their lancer. He's a great guy and his work is top quality.

#3 Here's the order of what happened, the radiator hose come off FIRST which started to heat up the engine causing the predetonation and warping of the head. The head gasket was actually fine. Now this was partially my fault, if i saw the temp gauge go nuts before the predetonation occured, this would all be ok. Just fix the hose and refill some coolant and I'm on the way. So i take partial responsibility for the damage.

I hope this doesn't deter anyone's faith in Road Race or Joe. I recommend both and stand by both their works completely.

 

Yeah, Joe's the man.

I'm assuming you're getting the head machined down a bit to be even. How much will this raise compression?

 

While you have the head off you might as well get a decompression head Gasket. I mean you are turbo and the head is off.

 

thanx hobie i really need that bro im feelin really bad cause its like my fault and i cant belive i missed somethign so small

 

nice job on the turbo install maybe i should let u turbo up my moms beater