the il was rea, mucky and appeared to have a tiny hint of green. i used alot of the green lucas assembly lube but my coolant is peak and green, i am concerned i might have to pull the motor again, or head atleast, has anyone else had this happen?


running rich? turn the boost up

the oil was real mucky*


running rich? turn the boost up

Sounds like head gasket.



FU Tuning

Yup sounds like head gasket. If you just put it together is it possible you didnt torque head down to spec?

i torqued it to 85ft lbs with arp lube. 30-60-80-85


running rich? turn the boost up

it is a cometic mls head gasket, and i let it run for 3 minutes and heat up to about 120 before i put the coolant in it, just incase it didnt seal to great the heat would help before coolant was getting splashed around. so it would only have been like 2 minutes of running with coolant, the exhaust was smoking slightly white but i just figured it was oil because the rings werent broken in yet


running rich? turn the boost up

Im thinking letting it run with no coolant was a bad idea. Could warp the head and block. In my experience the temp gauge becomes in accurate when there is no water touching it so it coulda been way hotter.

coolant should be red...

Simple, change the oil again, observe after five minutes, lather, rinse, and repeat. Keep an eye on your coolant level. When I first changed my oil on my Sunflower after i built the engine, i had maybe 100 miles on it, and it was dark gray. Mainly because of the ARP head stud lube, and copious amounts of Royal Purple assembley lube. After a couple 100-mile interval oil changes, it started looking normal. The good news is that if your coolant level stays the same, its probably excess lube from the build, and it shouldnt hurt. Keep an eye on everthing, and good luck, because I hate to see all the problems that you have had with the build. If you have any questions, PM me.




Currently #4 in Ecotec Forced Induction horsepower ratings. 505.8 WHP 414WTQ!!!
Currently 3rd quickest Ecotec on the .org - 10.949 @ 131.50 MPH!!!

the temp gauge didnt read 150, i used a digital thermometer and when the block got to about 100 on the outer i assumed 150 on the closer to combustion parts. and i read alot of post of unhappy people with dexcool and how they go with the green once there warranty is up so since my warranty is gone i followed the pack


running rich? turn the boost up

ive never had a problem with dex... i even run it in my 1993 cavalier as well as my 2000Z

I used lucas' break in formula with the oil on initial fire up, and kept it in for 500 miles... that stuff smells like straight weed...

lol that is interesting, i thought about getting some break in formula but decided not to, im just breaking it in with wolfs head oil and changing it every 100 miles for 300 miles, then at 700miles, then 1000 miles, then at 2000


running rich? turn the boost up

kevin roskosky wrote:and i let it run for 3 minutes and heat up to about 120 before i put the coolant in it, just incase it didnt seal to great the heat would help

EPIC! Congratulations on deforming your sealing surfaces and ruining a build that would've likely been fine. My Cometic is torqued to 88 lb-ft with ARP studs and oil and coolant were perfect since the start, and so are temps...



2001 Olds Alero (LD9)
650 whp / 543 ft-lb
@turboalero

[ion wrote: C2]

kevin roskosky wrote:and i let it run for 3 minutes and heat up to about 120 before i put the coolant in it, just incase it didnt seal to great the heat would help

EPIC! Congratulations on deforming your sealing surfaces and ruining a build that would've likely been fine. My Cometic is torqued to 88 lb-ft with ARP studs and oil and coolant were perfect since the start, and so are temps...

i really dont see any problem with what i did since it was way under normal temp, its not much higher temps than sitting in a hot ass day, i must have failed the test that said without a liquid reinforcement , two objects wont seal


running rich? turn the boost up

You don't seem to realize that water/coolant in the engine acts like a heatsink. Without any liquid coolant in there, hot spots will form and the engine will overheat extremely quickly. I don't care what the surface temperature is on the outside of the engine... do you know what combustion temperatures are like?


2001 Olds Alero (LD9)
650 whp / 543 ft-lb
@turboalero

i know they werent very hot, i could hold my hand up to the turbo exhaust and it wasnt very hot at all, my time might have been an overstatement


running rich? turn the boost up

ill change the oil, let it run for a little bit and we shall see


Edited 1 time(s). Last edited Wednesday, October 06, 2010 7:44 PM

running rich? turn the boost up

Hope it's alright and it's just a massive amount of assembly lube. Do a compression test too.

kevin roskosky wrote:i know they werent very hot, i could hold my hand up to the turbo exhaust and it wasnt very hot at all, my time might have been an overstatement

Not exhaust temperatures; combustion temperatures. I can touch my downpipe when the car is first started too, but that doesn't mean the explosions in the cylinder aren't already in excess of 1000+ F.

If you search around, the general consensus is more than a few SECONDS is quite harmful. You know that coolant acts as a lubricant for your water pump as well, right? Although if you had a little in there still, it should be fine, unless it's a fresh build than there may be increased wear already.

Various other opinions from the interweb:

Quote:

Bad idea! Car WILL overheat in like 15 seconds with no water/coolant in there

Quote:

Even when its not circulating, the coolant in the water jacket is still a heatsink.

Quote:

Since it's all aluminum, it's likely to overheat pretty fast, and since aluminum warps and gets otherwise changed at relatively low temps compared to steel, you are very likely to do serious damage to your engine in less than 1 min.

Quote:

Without coolant present, you lose the "heatsink" that the coolant provides. This can cause serious overheating and hot spots often resulting in extensive damage.

2001 Olds Alero (LD9)
650 whp / 543 ft-lb
@turboalero

if its bad, its a learning experience that i will certainly not make the mistake off again, if it is fine i will consider myself a lucky SOB and go buy some lotto tickets


running rich? turn the boost up

Im right there with you...I have a vacuum leak again and while it was idling and I was trying to figure out where it was coming from, the engine and header got so hot from the lean condition it made my o2 sensor wires smoke and my cruise control bracket melt. And the bracket is a good 6 inches away from the header. I hope I didnt do any damage.

oh damn haha, thats not good at all. did you start it up after that?


running rich? turn the boost up

Id personally be worried about getting the rings to seal letting it idle for a couple minutes.

I personally just rebuild my LD9, started it for the first time last night. It sat at idle for maybe 30 seconds, you only have a short window of opportunity to get the rings to seal.


"Oil Leak ? What oil Leak ? Oh, Thats Just The Sweat From All The HorsePower!!"

kevin roskosky wrote:

[ion wrote: C2]

kevin roskosky wrote:and i let it run for 3 minutes and heat up to about 120 before i put the coolant in it, just incase it didnt seal to great the heat would help

EPIC! Congratulations on deforming your sealing surfaces and ruining a build that would've likely been fine. My Cometic is torqued to 88 lb-ft with ARP studs and oil and coolant were perfect since the start, and so are temps...

i really dont see any problem with what i did since it was way under normal temp, its not much higher temps than sitting in a hot ass day, i must have failed the test that said without a liquid reinforcement , two objects wont seal

LOL!!

You realize that the CTS has a hard time reading the engine temp's if there isn't coolant in it right? Last car I had coolant low enough to do that read dead center in the gauge where it was supposed to. When the engine finally stopped knocking from being as hot as it was it took me about 10 seconds to realize that I didn't have any power steering, and then that the tach (digital) said 0 RPM on it.






i find it amusing that SHOoff has nothing better to do but follow me around & be an unhelpful dick in even cross-forum. - Jon Mick

i know that SHOoff but i wasnt going by the guage because i know that it doesnt read without any coolant, i had a infared temp gun


running rich? turn the boost up

That's fine, but that only shows external temps. Internally it's way hotter, especially with no coolant. Think what you want but your coolant will help to even out the temps as well. Keeping it a consistent temp, rather than really hot in one spot and sorta cool in another.





i find it amusing that SHOoff has nothing better to do but follow me around & be an unhelpful dick in even cross-forum. - Jon Mick