[s-cars] Re: 80tq: Head Gasket Failure

[Richard Hoffman]

Sounds like you are making some improvements (studs) with this HG change.
Just curious; did you use a standard head gasket to replace it or did you go
to the metal S6 unit?
Richard
2 too many Audis ;)



>From: JShadzi at aol.com
>To: quattro at audifans.com, s-car-list at audifans.com, urq at audifans.com
>Subject: 80tq: Head Gasket Failure
>Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 22:35:40 -0500
>
>After recent discussions and the fact that my wife was out of town for the
>weekend I decided to tackle the head gasket since it was becoming more and
>more obvious that it was a problem.
>
>Thanks to Christian Miller for the use of his Dad's shop and helping turn
>wrenches, it was a nice, enjoyable job, we took a leisure pace and took our
>time.  Work began Sat morning around 11am, by 12:30 or so the head was off
>and we took a lunch brake, after lunch the head surface and block were
>cleaned up, studs installed, new gasket, etc, and oh, noticed this:
>
>http://www.80tq.com/images/HG_failA.JPG
>
>and
>
>http://www.80tq.com/images/HG_failB.JPG
>
>These pics are pretty consistent with the way the gasket looked, very beat
>up and worn.  Definitive leaks in #4 and 5, suspect in #2 also though its a
>surprise any of the cylinder held pressure including 4 and 5.  #5 header
>runner had evidence of leakage in as the runner looked like new inside.
>This gasket only really leaked under heavy boost conditions consistently
>for a year, never a big blow out like you'd suspect with a HG failure.  The
>stock bolts had varying torque on them, some were much looser than others,
>in the future I'll be using only studs on motors with more than stock specs
>in mind.
>
>We quit early on Sat around 5:30, Sunday morning we spend an hour or 2
>buttoning up the front end and cleaning up the shop, car started right up
>and has been running like a top.
>
>Pistons and comb. chambers looked great, not a pit in sight.  These motors
>continue to amaze me with durability, this motor has about 40k hard miles
>since I put it together, it held up really well considering 034efi
>development, about 30 track days, ignition development (read detonation),
>cooling system development (read overheating), etc.  I figure the motor was
>due for a HG.
>
>I'm in the process of putting in a Crane HI6 capacitive discharge ignition
>and race coil, I'll post results of how that helps, from some research i've
>been doing it appears that many cars greatly benefit from similar CD
>systems, so I'm hoping this will help my problem too.
>
>I plan on doing a few track days next month so I'll post results on whether
>i've made any progress on the cut out problem.
>
>Javad
>80tq.com


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