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Athena head gasket question


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Can i reuse a 1.4mm athena metal head gasket? (only been on the car 3 weeks) and the car's still smoket so need to pull the head off and sort it.

Hope i can because i don't wanna spend another £110 on another!!

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Yeah, i've tried 3 turbos now and the smat thing happens... foot down, back off for a few seconds and touch the accelerator pedal and there's a plume of smoke from the exhaust, it's just had a full rebuild and new valve stem seals.

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yeah mate the comp test showed 175psi ocross all 4 cylinders (cold)

Luke, this is quite a bit of smoke (bluey/gray colour), i'm running a blitz access at 0.7bar

Any ideas? it doesn't smoke till you get off the power for a few seconds or so then touch the throttle again

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I'll do a hot one when i get home, yeah throttle was fully open mate, it's bugging the shit out of me. it's only done 1500 mile since it was rebuilt (new rings & hone, shells, mains, pumps, oil seals ect)

So any help is much apreciated!

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technically no...

close, technically yes, i personaly never would, however multilayer steel hg can be reused a few times (2-3) i know lads who have reused cruise ones a few times with no issue. just clean the gasket up with brake cleaner and re tourque in sequence as if it where new, saying that if you skim the head id defo not reuse it. for more advice on reusing the mls gaskets talk to dave at tmdevelopments the dudes a starlet god!!

if its still smoking could be rings or valve stem seals,

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who did the engine work mate as it sounds like it could be build related?

have you got a way of checking blow-by?

excessive exhast smoke could be because of high blow-by!

are you running a crankcase breather/oil catch tank or filter on the crank case, if that is blocked it will cause blow by.

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Hi rob, nah no way of checking for blowby, i sold my leak down tester last year as i thought i wouldn't need it lol.

I built it but had the head, block and crank done at my local engineers place, only thing i can think of is that i haven't clocked a ring or something like that.

I don't have any catch can or anything, the breather and pcvare both venting to atmosphere.

If i keep it in say 4th at 70-80 there's a faint stream of blue smoke behind me, if i back off for 5-10 seconds then accelerate again it smokes like a bitch then clears up a few seconds later.

I just had the valves ground in and new seals put on at the engineers shop so shouldn't be that, gasket is new mls 1.4 mm so can't be that, only thing i can think of is rings but they're new-ish too (1500 miles)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just realised something, i'd pulled the pcv pipe off and blanked the pipe on the intake mani a while back, venting the pcv on the rocker cover to atmosphere.

Would this cause enough negative pressure from run down at speed to burst the valve stem seals??

I've done a cold compression test and got 175psi on all 4 cylinders and a hot one made 180psi on all 4 so i don't think it's the rings/ bores.

A mechanic mate said it's possibly the bores are slightly oval and that's why it's smokey but would this not loose compression??

Any thoughts guys??

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so wat your saying is its smoking wen cylinders are cold just after uptake from idle, take your breath pipe off the top and use a mono meter and check for ring flutter under aceleration. did u check the ring land for cracks, take your exhaust and inlet off and look at the valves is thr any oil in thr, also do a plug read wich cly is burning oil, also why did the engine com apart is thr any residual oil bin left in the exhaust or intercooler.

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Kinda mate, it doesn't smoke from cold or at idle but when driving it at speed, i back off the throttle for a few seconds and then touch the accelerator pedal i get a big puff of blue/grey smoke for a couple of seconds then it clears,

Car runs fine but smokey on run down.

What's a mono meter mate??

Cheers,

Chris.

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a mono meter is a meter that checks for posative or negative presure. u can make 1 out of a garden hose and a peace of clear tubing around the same diameter as the garden hoseing, look thm up dead easy to do, wat u are looking for is wat is know in the engine building world as ring flutter this is wer the rings loose contact with the cylinder walls, the main causes of this are cylinder glazing and carbon build up in the ring grooves which causes them to stick, if you put the mono meter in the top bigger breather and block the pcv valve breather then sharply hit the throttle the water in the u tube will move 1 way or the other (positive or negative air presure), if the water gets blown out of the tube you have ring flutter.

now wen u ran the engine to run everything in wat oil did you use, if high spec stuff this could be your problem as this causes cylinder glazing because of the addatives in it.

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Hi Mate, i ran it on tesco own brand mineral oil as i was changing the oil every 250 miles, then at 750 miles i put some magnatec in and ran it for 400 miles then i put mobil 1 in.

I't used about a litre or so of oil in 300 miles so it's fairly going through it.

I had the valve stem seals done at my local engineers, when i put the head on origionally i noticed the pcv to mani pipe was split so i cut it and bunged the mani side to stop it sucking in air.

what i was thinking is that because the pcv pipe was blocked at the mani it's caused too much negative pressure when the car is at speed with the throttle closed (on run down) and burst the valve seals...does this sound plausable??

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  • 3 weeks later...

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