....but unfortunatly, its not.

Heres the problem. The car starts up in the morning and basically sounds like a half-bridged motor; the skipping brap-brap-brap sound. When the car warms up and I try to drive it, it hesitates and sputters. My pal drove behind me and said the car was shooting maybe two feet flames at low rpm so I take it it runs very rich during this time. It has no heat even when the needle is halfway how it should be on the water gauge. The idle shoots up to as high as 2k at a stop light during this time also. It does this for about five minutes, I bring the RPM up around 6k once or twice then it seems like the symptoms dissapear, heat works again and it runs perfect.

Driving yesterday I bossted a little (Profec off - 7psi) and came to a stop. Steam was coming form the engine so I pulled over right away and then noticed my water gauge starting to climb. Turned the car off and drove in a parking lot. There was coolant on my hood and near the fans but I couldn't tell where it was coming from. I bought some 50/50 coolant and ended up pouring the whole thing in. Started the car, no leaks so I drove home slowly. Coolant didn't leak out any so now I'm all kinds of confused.

A little background: The car has 87k on stock motor with new turbos at 60k. I was having the bad coolant seal symptoms a couple months ago; car starts lazy, lots of smoke during startup and bubbles in coolant. Couldn't afford a rebuild yet so I used the block-weld treatment and it worked great for 3-4 months. Now a few days ago the car starts on one rotor again, more smoke on startup and hard starts. I thought the block weld blew through so I tried doing the whole thing again and now this whole brap brap brap thing started.

I've heard the block-weld clogs up lines and radiators and heating cores. Could this be part of my problem right now, or is it something worse? Anyone with an experiance similar to this?

 

The original engine in my old FC would do something similar to what you described, except not as long. When cold, it would start and run on 1 rotor, for about 10 seconds, then out of nowhere the engine would "wake-up" and run smooth. Then one day it just wouldn't start any more. Turned out to be a marginal water seal.

You're lucky you got as much time as you did with the water system patch. Sounds like its time to just bite the bullet and rebuild the engine.

 

mine sounds like this on extremely cold mornings and smokes a whole lot. i wonder.........

 

check your pulleys and make sure they are not slipping. make sure belt is tight

 

What the hell are you talking about man?!?

 

Your engine was living on borrowed time, sounds like the coolant seal has finally gone. The blockweld can give you some time to get your ducks in a row for a new engine/rebuild, but it does not hold up to boost very well and does clog the water journals in the engine.

 

Agreed. Not to alarm some of you people, but if you are seeing serious smoking during start up that has a burnt coolant smell, you might have a coolant seal that is worn.

In my case, the motor could hardly turn over (unable to compress and combust the coolant very well) initially, when it did, it would run really HORRIBLE. After that, it just cleared up.

Well, if your coolant seal is totally fubar, it'll show. Aside from a coolant pressure test, there is another way way to test it. Let your car sit for a few hours after the coolant heats up (let the fans run at least once). Remove your two leading spark plugs and turn the motor by hand counter-clockwise with a socket on the alternator. If coolant comes of the spark plug holes, you know the deal.