Thread: General Consensus: Lifted head...

Seems to be happening a lot lately, doesn't it?

I've been pushing coolant into my overflow bottle for around a month, nothing MAJOR, but obviously something wrong. I kept shrugging it off as a coolant system issue, something to do with the system being improperly bled, maybe a radiator cap, or thermostat.

After talking with a few people, seems like the head is infact lifting under hard boost.

Going to pull the VC and cams out tonight and loosen/retorque the headstuds. Going to put RR lifters in as well. Should get me by for a few weeks or months, but it looks as if I'll be pulling the motor and putting something a little less finicky in the bay so that I can get the motor re-done. Have a feeling that the head may have some cracks in it as well, so I'm likely to go with another lowport head, if not over to a VE. Gonna be strange driving a non-turbo SE-R around

If the coolant is properly filled, it is supposed to push out into the overflow as it expands, then get sucked back into the radiator as it cools. If that's not happening, I would suspect the cap.

Yah, what exactly do you mean by "pushing coolant"?

Blown head gasket, mine is doing the same thing right now because I have blown the gasket for like the 3rd time. Everytime it has blown when I get into boost it has pushed coolant into the overflow bottle (faster coolant loss if I go into boost) until it slowly overflows and my car starts to overheat due to coolant loss. Pull the head and change your head gasket. If you think the head is lifting get some head studs then you wont have to worry. Could also be the radiator cap, change the simplest things first.

I have a new cap, fully purged system. 16psi cap iirc from the 300zx.

I have experienced some of the same issues. I have the NEW ARP head studs, the 220K psi strength ones. Torqued to 108lbs. And I have similar issues when running big boost. Hence, I am lowering the boost and trying to optimize the setup. Granted, I won't be able to get more BMEP from the engine without the head lifting, but I will be able to massively reduce pumping losses. And that should help power a lot.

To be honest I don't know if it is head lift, or a bad cometic gasket. It only happens on really high boost settings of 26psi+ after several runs down the track. But i will spill all the coolant from the bottle, and the system will suck the bottle completely dry as it cools off.

Well, retorqued the headstuds to 95ftlbs each. New style ARP's. Didn't want to go any higher than that. Checked the HLA's and we determined that they are the newer style RR lifters, which I thought was odd, but nice anyway.

After all was said and done, and a few mishaps, the coolant level seems to be even more in check than before. Pulled the stupid STANT radiator cap off and put an OEM one in it's place. Apparently the STANT wouldn't seal properly, and I think that was the main cause of pushing too much coolant.

Time will tell, but she seems to be running fine other than an apparent vacuum leak that I need to find before we take off tomorrow morning to NJ.

Thanks to Jensen and Joel for the help!

I'm starting to wonder if my head gasket has gone bad while sitting, I don't know if that's possible. My coolant, I suppose was going back into the radiator it sounded like it was boiling in the overflow tank. The car also produces white smoke if revved at start up, and the oil smells a little sweet, which I'm hoping isn't coolant.

Side note: The motor only has aprox. 40k miles on it.

When this happened to me, it was indeed head lift. I had a brand new GTi-R radiator and Nismo Cap, so coolant system was ok.

When I checked, three ARP head studs caps were so loose I removed them by hand with zero effort.
Someone hinted me that ARP head studs need to be re-torqued after a week of break-in-like use.

I'll not use ARP head studs ever again, brand new OEM ones do better imho.

User error dont blame the product for that.

I have a comectic headgasket for my new build along with AEBS headstuds. If I have this issue I will be pissed.