the easiest way to see if your headgasket is blown is to take your head off and look at it! its not really all that hard, but if you have never done it i guess i would not suggest it. I just did one on my old civic and on the civic i am selling right now, it is real easy if you know engine crap pretty good. I have a shop and a mechanic who showed me how to do it, but it really is not that hard, pick up a shop manual and read up, save yourself a ****load of money from having a shop do it. Its a one day job if its your first time, and a few hours if you've done it before on any other car.

otherwise, look for those warning signs mentioned and get it fixed my a reputable mechanic ASAP, you can screw a lot of stuff up with a blown head gasket, just did one on a 4 cylinder camary.....thatts a chore, and that thing was toasted. also look for coolent coming out in places it should not, i had a car in my shop that had coolent leaking in odd places and we took out what looked like scap metal and cardboard from where the headgasket was, it was blown to ****. needless to say every wear part in the engine was shot too, rings, valve seals etc. and the engine had so much carbon and **** in it, it took us a weekend to clean it.

anyway, good luck, and dont waite long.

Doug - DCtuners

 

Wow, thanks for the info man... I have done my own swaps and everything in my car. I am in the process of getting through my auto-tec certificate so i do have a decent amount of experience. From what you describe, my symptoms seem almost identical! Can you tell me what all i will need to buy to complete the job? I know the gasket and new head studs. ... One more thing is that i have noticed alot of coolant leaking in the car and onto the floormats. Could this headgasket be causing that to happen?? I can go 2 days w/out driving the car and Still have pressure in the system when i pop the cap... Anyways, check out some old pics of my ride!

http://www.teameci.com/version2/memb...il.php?MemID=6

 

a few months back i just got my head gasket replaced, and a few signs that i had been getting was 1- when i opened up my resiviour, there was no water in it, and as time had progresed, it looked like there was milk in it, becasue of the mixture of motor oil, coolent, & water (sorry my spelling is a bit off today). Another sign was that the gauge kept on going up And staying around Hot. Another sign was that the heater wouldnt work correctly - when it was set on hot, cold air would blow out. And then when it gets really bad, the when you start to poor in coolent in the car, or water for that matter, & the car would ususally just leak out the flooded in just a matter of minutes. So those were just a few of the symtems that i was getting when i was getting this problem.
Hope this helps you out.

 

civic on 19s i like your rig. not usually a fan of big rims, but those look good and the paint is clean. anyway. You are obviously goign to need a head gasket, studs may or may not be needed, i have replaced on one car and not another. you might wanna get intake and exhaust maniforld gaskets while you are in there since those have to come off the head to take it off. other than that there is not really much else you need i dont think. if its blowing any smoke you might wanna do valve seals while you are in there, since they are cheep and easy to do when you have the head off. nothing else is needed i dont think, if i remember correctly. if the head is blown you are goign to have some crusty stuff left on the block, your goignt o want to CAREFULLY clean all that crap out so you have a good seal with the new head gasket, but im sure you could figure that out. most of all, take your time and make sure you know what you are doing. If you can swap an engine you can do this. its internal kinda, but its simple as long as you read up on how to do it first with a manual. if you are training for ASE cert. or whatever you said then this will be a great learning exsperiance, cause all head gaskets are the same in what they do and crap, its how you get to them (camary's suck my asshole)

good luck, if i can do it you can man. im the business man at the shop, im still learnign all the engine stuff, but i love it.

Doug - DCtuners

 

Unless we can get these bad boys anytime soon! http://www.dana.com/technology/intelligentcooling.shtm

"Cylinder head gasket with embedded temperature sensors "

I had a pic, but don't anymore. Pretty wild to see a head gasket with sensors all over it, and a wiring harness hanging out of it.

 

wow, that is friggn cool. plus its made by dana, they are a big name in 4 wheeling, i have one of their axles under my truck. great stuff. i cant waite to hear more about this stuff.

Doug

 

could a blown headgasket also be a cause of loss in gas mileage?

 

I would think so. You would be trying to burn oil and/or coolant, so the a/f ratio would be all out of whack, right? But, I wouldn't use poor gas mileage to try and identify a blown head gasket. Use one (or all) of the previously mentioned methods. If you even suspect your head gasket is blown, don't drive the car.

Check out some of the other stuff on that technology page... Intelligent Lubrication, starter/alternator combo, etc... cool sh!t. Delphi has some pretty interesting stuff too.

 

If your headgasket blows, you will be able to tell. The car will drive like ****, idles like crap, and lots of white smoke will come out from the exhaust.