So yeah, my car suddenly goes hot, so I pull off the road, cool down, and check the fluid level...no coolant. So I fill it up, and today I check it for good measure. There's coolant missing, so I let the engine warm up and take a look at the exhaust pipes....white fucking smoke...

I smell it, yup smells faintly like the coolant. I'm burning coolant, so I guess its a cracked head or a gasket. Anyways, does anyone know of ANY way short of pulling the top end of my engine apart that will let me know if its a cracked head or blown gasket? I can't be playing the guessing game with my car, I need it driveable.

P.S.
I should just get a sticky thread to post all of my problems in. I have enough of them...

 

well are you just loosing coolant or is the car running horrid?

if you didn't notice a drastic change in performance I'd start looking at other possibilities

 

also to check for blown head gasket I believe you can check the compression

 

A compression test'll let you know real quick if there's something wrong. Good fucking luck getting the tester nozzle into the spark plug holes though. 4th gen F-Bodies SUCK ASS for compression testing.

 

4th gen F-Bodies just suck ass in general. I've noticed some differences in how it runs. It might just be because its getting hot out now (I think it is), but its not as responsive as usual, and after I press the gas the car idles high until I come to a complete stop again. Still, not a huge performance fault like when one of my spark plugs crumbled into dust and left a cylinder completly dead. I dunno, it wasn't that bad when I pulled up to work today, but this morning it was leaking some pretty potent smoke. Hmm, if its not a head gasket, and other ideas? I know for a fact its not dripping into the catch pan or anywhere, because theres no coolant under the car, the only place I ever see that suggest coolant is the tailpipes.

 

v6's aren't that bad, I did a full plug wire change in less than an hour without using an extensions

 

I'm not sure how the weather is where you're at but it's been really humid
lately and that could be condensation building up in your tailpipes.

a compression test is going to be your best tool

 

Very well could be, I only had the car running for 4 or 5 minutes and then I was seeing the smoke, but it really seemed like it was more than just condensation. I dunno, the car isn't overheating or anything so far, but I don't really drive it long distances so I wouldn't even know. I swear to god if I have to throw more money into this car to buy new heads I'm not selling it, I'm parking it on train tracks and letting it get smashed into peices when I'm done with it.

And yeah, after you have to change the plugs and wires on an lt1 I'll bet a lot of things seem easy

 

Hmm, well theres no noticable loss of power. I proved that to some spikey haired dude in his Honda tonight (Oh, and if the dude in the Silver camaro who turne donto Gunn with me is on here, just what the HELL did you do to make that noise, was that you grinding a gear, or did your car blow up? Seriously, I was about to stop and see if everythign was okay...). Anyways, the water loss is insane, I put a little mroe water in it before leaving work tonight. Its not spitting as much smoke as it should be to be losing that much water, though, and I still don't see a puddle under my car. I'm going to do the compression test, but wouldn't I be able to feel -torque if I lost compression?

 

If you're able to regurly drive and race the car i doubt its a head gasket. When i blew mine, i had to have the car towed because it woudln't even start.