replace head gasket or the entire enginee

How's the oil consumption? Still on original piston rings?

Wait a sec, think I recall, it's something like a quart every 10K miles?? Which is pretty good.

 

About 1 quart every 10,000 miles. More if I drive faster... But I average 65mph.
If I go 70, mpg and oil level goes down a lot.

 

So, I'm replacing the head gasket myself on a v with 131,000 miles... If I were to do it all over again, I'm putting in a Gen 4 engine. There is just so much that can go wrong when you open up the engine.... All the specialty tools and gaskets... Lapping valves... And all the time it's taking! Maybe I should have taken it somewhere. I've pretty much taken out the entire engine at this point. I had to lap the valves because I was losing 70% compression from cylinder 1 out the exhaust. Cleaning the cylinder head is no joke! But it looks like I'll get to change the engine anyways because there is obviously a flaw with this engine that is causing the head gasket to blow!

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If you rebuild the engine correctly, and you keep the egr circuit cleaned every 50-75,000 miles
and drive it like a Formula1 car, you'll be fine.

 

Key piece of the equation... Rebuild the engine correctly... . Easier said than done.

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Not really, if you're going to do anything, you should do it right, the first time.
It depends on how much money you have to spend, and want to spend, and WHEN you want to spend it.

 

Hey bud. Going through the same dilemma. Can I ask where you found the $3500 replacement in SD? Thanks

 

Hoping to hear from you of where in SD you found this engine replacement deal. Thanks

 

Ok I just bought a used 3rd gen. Seemed fine on the test drive but its hesitating in the mornings when I first start it and at lower RPM’s. I did the block test and it was barely green not yellow, sometimes they say coolant that is OAT based can cause this. No sign of loss of oil, overheating or loss of coolant. I have driven it like 600-800 miles so far. Any advise is appreciated to get this properly diagnosed.

 

What do you mean by Hesitation?
When my head gasket went bad I had rattle/ misfire on startup. No hesitation at low RPM. No coolant in the oil. Coolant loss was almost indetectable but the block tester changed color quickly and obviously. I had codes for misfire on cylinders 2&3. Does this sound different from your problem?

 

What exactly do you mean by "hesitating.? Are you aware that the programming favors using battery power instead of engine power during the first one minute after a cold start?

 

More detail will get you better guesses. We will assume no check engine or hybrid fail lights since you did not mention either. I expect you want advice rather than wanting to advise.

A head gasket rattle is usually a severe almost metal to metal sound that literally shakes the engine but normally clears up in 15-30 seconds. It may go away for days with no obvious coolant loss. Prior use of stopleak can also reduce occurences and mimic an early hg fail.

When a hg leak has progressed or the sealant wears off, the coolant level will slowly drop and you may hear rattling again at stop lights as you start moving and the engine kicks on again.

A failing high voltage battery can reduce power to the wheels at low speeds and cause pinging. You will see the battery graphic very low at those times when this is the case. Generally with a failing hv battery the charge level drops quickly especially at a stop with the ac on.

An egr that fails to shutoff at low speed can cause minor roughness. This is rare. The usually egr issue is a clogged up system that mimicks an egr shut off all the time. This will eventually code.

 

Hello,

When I bought there were no codes, but after a while it thrown a code and misfire on all cylinders. No noticeable loss of coolant. Just cleaned the manifold, EGR ports, and EGR pipe today. Seems a little better but not gone. I did a block test and it went green but barely.

 

Sorry, it does have codes for misfire 1,2, 3, and 4 cylinders. Has not overheated since I had and I drove it on a 10 hours trip second day I owned to register it. Lots of blockages during the cleaning of the manifold , EGR passages, and EGR pipe today. Will take on a drive tomorrow and monitor and report back. Thanks for the reply.

 

It will sometime shutter violently in the morning for 5-10 seconds and then sometimes at lower speeds will have a hesitation at low RPM’s.

 

What’s the miles?

 

Did you clean the cooler? That is an important part...

 

241,000

 

Not yet we just moved from Louisiana to Arkansas and are still in a hotel, We move to a house on Feb 6th so I will have a garage and my tools then and I can finish by doing the EGR Valve and cooler.

 

Thanks everyone for the input, I’m monitoring the coolant and nothing noticeable and oil is not burning. I have tried to do some reading on the JDM engine which seem to be plentiful on the market with low miles, but are they just another time bomb waiting to happen? Seems like there are some quirks with putting in a 4th gen so just looking for the best solution if this thing is toast.