[s-cars] Coolant Leak at Exhaust Manifold

[mpollan1 at aim.com]

Greetings to all and no this is no April Fool's post although I wish it was...

Patient is a 95.5 S6 that is no longer mine but a buddy's.  He has been complaining of coolant loss following a TB and WP job.  I popped over but could see no sign of a leak anywhere but the coolant was way low and there was coolant still present on his garage floor.  Yesterday I went over again for a visit and being a nice day I asked him to fire the old girl up and pull her out into the sun.  I started looking on the turbo side of the motor and quickly saw a pin hole like bubbling from the exhaust manifold, cylinder 2 (cylinder 1 being the front most) at the gasket.  Really hard to detect but I got some on my finger and sure enough it smelled like coolant.  Within 30 seconds or so the leak "disappeared", or so I thought.  Upon reflection, the manifold was already so hot that the coolant vaporized without any visible bubbling.

I pulled the dipstick and the oil did not seem off color, i.e. milky.  I'm perplexed and really do not know how to advise him.  Head gasket?  Cracked head?  Compression/leak down test needed to determine the problem?  Any and all advice appreciated.

Best regards and be careful out there,

Mark