Ok so this isnt a new discovery but Im scratching my head as to whats up because I thought this problem was solved. I first discovered liquid atop my closed valves when doing a plenum pull a few months back. Id post pictures but im unable at this time. I took a swab of the fluid and it appeared an amber color. I was changing injectors at the time and figured my old style injectors were just slowly leaking while the car sat. I found some of the fluid up where the injector isolators are, on one or two of them and I thought this confirmed my assumptions.
An issue at the time was that if I let the car sit for a few days it would be hard to start at first and once started it would sound terrible for about a minute or so. My boost gauge would show that it lacked vacuum during the first minute of being on so I imagined a dead cylinder or two (figured plugs were drenched in that mystery fluid (old gas)).
Any way that problem disappeared and I changed the injectors and everything seemed fine. But my plugs would still be wet as well as my cylinders and my car would smoke faintly once warm. I know I have bad valve stem seals and so I ordered them thinking thats the only issue left.I just got done pulling the plenum to begin the valve seal replacement and I see the same liquid atop every set of intake valves apart from cylinder 1 and 2 and Im sure its only because those were the only ones still open. The valves of cyl 1 &2 were wet and pulling both plugs I saw that the chambers are wet also. So im convinced that all 6 cylinders have this amber colored liquid getting into them. Now one would think just leaky valve seals but thing is I cranked the engine for about 10 seconds with the fuel pump controller unplugged before I began taking the plenum off to release fuel pressure. So if this liquid was a result of valve seals it accumulated in that space of time while I was pulling the plenum. Either by dripping slowly or as the engine cranked moving the valve up and down this allowed it to leak in. The only other explanation is that the liquid came from in the cylinder chamber and was blasted up into the upper plenum thus settling atop the valves once the engine stopped. My upper plenum is supper clean by the way and the top half of the runners on the lower plenum is pretty clean as well...hmmmm Looking at the current liquid swab I took from atop the valves, I then took two more swabs: one of oil from the RH intake camshaft (under oil cap) and one of my coolant (i use a special waterless coolant called Evans waterless coolant and its brown/amber in color). The swab of the liquid atop the valves almost matched the color of the swab from my coolant perfectly but just doesnt smell the same. The swab from the valves smells extremely faint of gas but thats it. The coolant smell stink like gear oil kinda. I would say its a head gasket leaking coolant into the chamber and its getting up into the upper plenum while cranking but on both heads/every cylinder......makes no sense.
My compression numbers are all above 150. Car doesnt over heat. I do see actual oil on spark plug threads when I pull them and around the spark plug washers on a few of them. And Im sure its oil. Any ideas guys? Im thinking coolant system pressure test??
"torque gets you off the line...& hp gets you over the line." -
TTKeeper |
