I just got done with a two day DE event at Summit Point. On the way down I stopped at Pep Boys to pick up some oil to do an oil change (always a good idea before beating the crap out of your car) and as I was pulling into the parking lot my temp gauge spiked to 235 or so (SPA digital gauge mounted in pump neck) so I shut the car down and popped the hood. Coolant was spraying everywhere from a little hole in the turbo coolant return line. I prayed that I got her shut down in time, and went into pep boys and bought a hose and some coolant in addition to my oil, and installed the new hose in the parking lot and burped the system. Temperatures seemed to be under control and it wasn't blowing white smoke, so I figured everything was fine. The whole drive down to Summit went fine, car ran great. The car continued to run perfectly all day Saturday, temp never went over 208F. Sunday it ran fine, or so I thought. I was driving behind a mustang that had been spilling coolant all day Saturday, and smelled antifreeze. Figuring he was spilling again, I backed way off him and slowed to 50% speed, and promptly spun completely out for no apparent reason in turn five. I head into the pits to complain, and right as I stop, huge plumes of steam come billowing out of the hood. Turns out I was the one spilling antifreeze and slicked up my own rear tires. This time the culprit was a damaged gasket on the filler cap on top of the water pump neck. I managed to salvage one from a Subaru driver who had nuked his turbocharger, and once again burped the system and the car behaved itself and ran great. Driving home at a modest pace of about 70mph, the temp soared again, and when I pulled over huge clouds of steam came again, this time the radiator cap had worked itself loose. We hastily filled it up with coolant again and drove to an emergency pullout and swapped my friend's car off his trailer and put mine up on it. This morning we tried to start her up... no dice, it just cranks and cranks. Fearing the worst, I pulled the cap off the radiator and cranked it once again, and a geyser of coolant sprayed out... dead motor.

Just thought I would share...

 

Now that blows chunks! Sorry to hear.

 

DAmn man, im sorry

 

Ouch man, I'm really sorry to hear that.

 

sorry to hear about that
what do you think the cause of it was?

 

the fact that he had 3 repeated incidents involving leaking coolant lines shows something bad. the lines sprung leaks due to high coolant pressure possibly a clog somewhere?

idk after the 2nd leak id have been alittle worried.

 

Yeah... looking back I think compression was reaching the coolant for an extended period and got progressively worse, but as it was happening I thought it was just old parts letting go... the hose was pretty beat up, as was the gasket in the first cap that let go.

 

is the motor apart yet? did you lose both housings?

 

No, car is sitting in the neighbor's driveway. Probably won't get it to the shop till sometime next week, I'll keep everyone posted.

 

pull the plugs out and see if theres signs of coolant.. that could be interesting.

 

how do you know the engine was dead due to coolant spraying out when you had the cap off?
it could just be "uber flooded" from when you shut it off last. Do a compression test if you havent already done so.
and check your plugs!.. it pains me to see people work on other problems with a non starting engine without checking the compression first. It's always the first thing I do before I bother checking anything elce..
and if it is flooded, your making it even worse everytime you crank the engine over and it dosent start. my friends rx-7 flooded while in the shop it was at and the idiots sat there for a hour trying to crank it, by the time we got there it took cleaning the plugs constantly about 8x and cranking it without the EGI fuse numerous times before it would even try to start on it's own.

 

Coolant spraying out generally indicates that compression is reaching the water jacket... The mechanic will make a full diagnosis before yanking the motor, but the 100 similar threads I've read on this very forum indicate a blown motor.