Hi,

My 06 WRX has the dreaded head gasket failure!

My coolant gets pressurised under boost. From searches and speaking with a reputable Subaru engine expert, my symptoms suggest that the gasket isn't blown, it's just that head is lifting under boost and burping combustion gases out into the cooling system.

There might be alot more to it, but to a layman this would suggest that a head bolt or two has stretched and is no longer as tight as it should be so allowing the head to move under load. Has anyone tried simply re-torqing the head bolts to see if it solves the issue? It looks like it's all fairly accessible from underneath, so this would be fairly quick thing to do.

It may be a crazy thought, but to me it's not worth spending £1.5K on the car to leave the risk of the ringland failure there, and £3.5K writes the car off as far as I'm concerned.

What are you thoughts?

Cheers.

 

Best of luck with that one.

 

If it's a right off to you, sell it to me for £1k.

 

Your gasket will most certainly need replacing.

What "expert" told you to do that?

 

headgasket is a full strip down and rebuild from crank bearings up, anyone not advising that is clueless

 

Why does a head gasket failure mean a complete rebuild?

Id agree that the "torqueing the head bolts" solution is bat **** crazy, but splitting the bottom end to do a head gasket ...... really?

 

They have a very nasty habit of failing very soon after.

Short version, water is incompressable so if it leaks into the cylinder crank spins round, piston can't go up and bearing gets crushed between rod end/crank and bent out of correct shape. After that oil doesnt flow propely and it wears. In short order bearing fails due to that wear or it breaks up, metal bits in the oil gallerys is never a good idea.

Sure someone who's more knowledge about the technical side of it can explain it better than me but thats the crux of it

 

Hey BrownPants - after all that windscreen crap and now this - nightmare!!!

He didn't tell me to do it- it was just that he said the gasket was probably fine and that the head was moving under load and that got me thinking.

I've since spoken to someone else and he said that the sort of boost I'd be running (WRX mapped to 273) wouldn't have been anywhere near enough to stretch the bolts - he's running 2.5bar and no stretching (although I suspect he has studs with that much power).

 

2.5 bar on a 2.5? righto lol

 

a 2.35

 

ah was gonna say, 2.5bar would spilt the block in two lol

 

Oh well, it was a last ditch idea to save the car - nevermind, it'll be traded in for something else.

Very disappointing as I was really getting into this car and I was really looking forward to some track days (once I'd sorted out the crap WRX brakes that is - I had them practically on fire after 5 mins of country lanes - smoke was horrendous). Funds are tight due to an upcoming house move, so it'll be something boring for me for a while as no more money to put into cars at the mo.

Cheers.

 

get it built properly, if your planning on keeping the car a while then worth the cost

 

I learn something new everyday

 

only a fool woudl claim they doint

 

I know everything already!

Every time I learn something new, something old falls out. I have to be very careful as I run the risk of losing something critical if I learn anything else now!