The Project Pad

I honestly think it is one of the reasons VW/Audi moved the water pump assembly up right next to the head on the 06A block.

good lord man. looks like you need that beast motor in your hands sooner then later eh? :-D

Its going to suck that we will probably have no idea what fixed the issue since I'm sure you will address all of these issues at the same time. Will it be injector, o-ring, t-stat, awic, etc??

Either way, I agree...you get the MG persistence award for 2009. 2010 is going to be an awesome year. I can feel it

whatd you end up doing with the stat? i forget now....you just ran it with nothing in there or you ended up gutting the stocker and using that plate in there to restrict the flow a bit?

nothing. no t-stat.

ah. ya, what mark said above was what i was told by a few local hot rodder guys, that instead of completely taking the thing out they just cut the guts out and use that as a restrictor. i actually think they make ones that have all different size hole for sb's, but since we have 4cyl20v vw motors, we were lucky enough to get fvcking aluminum stat housings, lol.

for what it's worth i run a oem one untouched with no problem and my rad is smaller

That head gasket damage is from knock, not from to high of cylinder pressure. From the looks of it, it was knocking for some time. Not a lot of knock, but non stop small knock. It was enough to kill the head gasket but not enough to show on the pistons.

Aaron do you have a way to read knock? Also after a pull are you pulling your plugs and checking them for peppering. I know its old school but it works.

Also Aaron you should be copper coating your MLS head gasket

Um ur doin it wrong Have you even got to make pass with it yet? And you've been through a motor and 2 HG's? :frustrated:

no passes. 2 motors. 2 HG's. melted 2 heads. both went when it reaches 45 psi...

and its done for the year

45psi

I want to see this thing run :-D

Persistance always pays off....hang in there Aaron.

gvr4 wrote:That head gasket damage is from knock, not from to high of cylinder pressure. From the looks of it, it was knocking for some time. Not a lot of knock, but non stop small knock. It was enough to kill the head gasket but not enough to show on the pistons.

Aaron do you have a way to read knock? Also after a pull are you pulling your plugs and checking them for peppering. I know its old school but it works.

Also Aaron you should be copper coating your MLS head gasket

I think most agree with this but WHY? Could be a bad injector spray pattern. Hot spot in the combustion chamber or a hot combustion chamber not getting proper cooling... Peppering is a great sign and should be checked. Did you see any signs of Knock/Detonation on the other plugs.

Also. Which way does the fuel travel through your rail 1 to 4 or 4 to 1...?

Another thing i was thinking aaron... Does Autronic allow for cylinder by cylinder timing advance/retard. If so check those settings. Might have a different configuration for cylinder 1...

fuel goes 1 to 4....

i am thinking injector. going to pull them and mark them and have them checked/tested/cleaned.

i dont know too much about detonation etc. its always run on C-16, 117 octane.

it should be possible with the Autronic, i will look around in the map to see how things are.

Aaron I am going to agree with you that it may be your injector. I know My friend Lucas (English racing)had one of his 1200 that was only flowing like 800cc and it took out a piston. I do hope you get this fixed. I had hoped to see the car a BOTI and was sad to not see it there.

I know how you feel when shit keeps going wrong. Last year I had to pull my head like 4 times. Then after I got it all fixed I had a lower coolant line come off and I ended up cooking the motor. Had to do a whole new rebuild. I was about to give up but took the winter to put the car back together. I am happy I now did.

Stick with it. In the end you will be happy you did.

Install a pressure relief valve onto your cooling system as a failsafe. I have seen this before on race cars, even if it isn't the problem its cheap insurance.
Also did you happen to datalog on any of the runs, I would like to see your coolant temp. I can see alot of coolant being moved through your engine without a thermostat, combined with a massive increase of heat in a VERY short period of time as a problem. The coolant is pressurized to raise the boiling point, maybe you didn't lift the head, maybe the coolant found a weak spot in the HG and cut through it. The picture you posted of the head is interesting, the shape of the erosion looks as if its coming from the water jacket, not going to the water jacket.

the coolant has a pressure relief setup, it is the cap of the custom radiator reservoir, 22-25 psi. it relieved into the catch can. it pressurized and reshaped the radiator but surprisingly did not blow any lines.....

the temps were well in check.

i have all the pulls logged.

oil temps start around 145 and end up 165 or so....

173 degree coolant (F) and 107 degree intake (F) on the run that lifted it up.

thats not hot.

So did your radiator cap function properly?? If so why did your radiator balloon like that? I know its an afterthought but a pressure gauge on the cooling system would be helpful, a spike in pressure may not show up as an increase in temperature, especially at more or less a moments notice like when an engine lets go. I am not so much worried about heat and I should have said that, more about pressure. Also how much coolant did you have overall and what type? Or where you running just water?

Gruppe5 are you sippin on the yak?
You must be if you think coolant pressure had anything with this.

One good compression stroke could do that... easy.

hypothetical wrote:One good compression stroke could do that... easy.

I don't think you're following me. No way the coolant pressure ever got high enough to force it's way into the combustion chamber. The radiator shows that the boost pressure got into the coolant system

i run only water, it cools more due to the fact that it has a higher boiling point than coolant, which is more geared towards not freezing due to the glycol content.

the cooling system has between 4 and 5 gallons overall, more so than stock.

Toxcheap wrote:

hypothetical wrote:One good compression stroke could do that... easy.

I don't think you're following me. No way the coolant pressure ever got high enough to force it's way into the combustion chamber. The radiator shows that the boost pressure got into the coolant system

Of course I am following you. I am saying the same thing. No Water entered the engine, BUT Compression and boost pressure entered the cooling system. Lots of it...

Oh ok I thought you meant water in the cylinder during compression

speeding-g60 wrote:i run only water, it cools more due to the fact that it has a higher boiling point than coolant, which is more geared towards not freezing due to the glycol content.

the cooling system has between 4 and 5 gallons overall, more so than stock.

Actually, antifreeze has a higher boiling point than water.

But water has a higher... brain no worky, word not happening... Grr.

The water can absorb more heat than coolant can.

But running coolant in the water will help localized boiling because the boiling point will be higher. Can't cool what you can't get the liquid to touch because it's insulated by steam.

Or you could run Water Wetter, which helps prevent film boiling in other ways.

And whoever said running a gutted t-stat is important is thinking of outlet side T-stats not suction side like most VW engines have. With an outlet side T-stat the thermostat acts as a restriction so that the water pump can build water pressure in the block above the static pressure built by the radiator cap. More pressure = less localized boiling. It won't matter on a suction side T-stat because it is not being used as the restriction in the system.

Toxcheap wrote:Oh ok I thought you meant water in the cylinder during compression

No the gasket failed from the inside out. Aaron did you even have water in the cylinder when you took it apart?