I think I already know the answer but I figured I would ask anyway. After I warmed up the engine for an oil change, I heard a gargling noise coming from the engine bay. When I popped the hood, I saw bubbles coming from the area circled below. Is this antifreeze coming from a blown head gasket? The head has never been off and I'm running about 25 psi max of boost. Is this something that can be fixed easily, or should I just pull the motor and do a rebuild (maybe stroker with a new
turbo ). Also, is it safe to still drive her? I'm planning on going to Cars and Coffee on Saturday.

 

The area you circled is the exhaust manifold gasket. It's possible it could have a small exhaust leak and condensation is causing bubbles to form. I think I will come to C&C this Saturday too so I can take a look at it for you.

 

I don't think it's too much to worry about, you might want to have Kevin look at it though..

 

Kevin's out for a while... (couple more weeks).

Hows your coolant level?

 

check your oil and coolant to see if its contaminated. if not kracka is probably right.

 

I doubt it was just from condensation because of the rate of fluid coming out. It wasn't pouring, but there was a steady, small leak. The oil didn't have any visible coolant in it but I will check again tonight. The coolant level isn't too low, but it isn't too full either. I'll probably just let the car sit until Saturday so anybody interested can have a look.

 

Dab some of the fluid up with a white paper towel and see what color it is.

 

Well, things are getting worse. I just pulled the spark plugs and # 2 and 4 are visibly corroded as shown below and they are really brown. The spark plug wells are wet, too. I'm not even gunna waste my time drainig the coolant because I just don't wan to know. Looks like I'm not taking the Evo to Cars & Coffee.

 

it doesn't matter if the ceramic part is corroded. show us a pic of the tips. that should show us how your car is running.

 

Gotcha. Here is plug 4.

 

look at your overflow bottle. Mine turned black when I blew my head gasket.
It definitely looks like the signs... :-( Its a relatively simple fix, but I would advise you if you are wanting to do a build I would consider doing it now while you have it a part.

Another thing to check is, fill it up with water and go out for a drive, not hard, but just a standard drive... park it, and check back after about 5 or 10min... mine would always puke out coolant on the ground.

 

spark plugs are fine, check your coolent reservoir or the easy way just drain the coolent and look for oil in it, if you do a head gasket you gona need to draina and replace the coolent anyways...btw do you have stock or ARP head studs??

 

Thanks for all the advice. I'm going to do a compression check this afternoon to see if there are any more obvious problems.

And I'll go ahead and fill the reservior up, drive it around (slowly), and check the level. I never had a reference point, so this may tell me the rate of coolant loss.

I really don't want to drain the coolant because I'm not going to be doing any of the repair work at my house. I would rather just limp over to Evolution Dynamics whe I'm ready for the repair work.

 

How many miles are on the car?

 

She has 33K miles right now.

Just did a compression check and all 4 cylinders were 110-115. Seems low but it's within the specs I read on the forum earlier. Somebody can correct me if this is wrong.