Looks like I blew the head gasket.

 

Cool, an easy fix. The next question - do you suspect a root cause?

 

i am glad that is all that is wrong. best of luck jim

 

Great update!!! Glad to hear that it was the gasket and not something more ominous...

Dave

 

That's a relief. Glad it wasn't the worse.

 

 

Time to get out the straightedges! What gasket was that?


JIM

 

I would suggest that you pull the pan and have a look at the bearings . Anti-freeze is a bearing eater and your leak was straight into the oil . If the bearings are damaged you could just as well have piston skirt wear.
Sorry to sound so negative but it is better to find out now and not 2,000 miles later when it grenades.

JMO Bill

 

WHAT! No fender covers????
....better roll it over without the head at least to check the walls for damage. Hope you got it in time.

 

wow... i've never seen a whole chunk missing like that..
Bill

 

That chunk of gasket missing indicates something more than just a gasket failure. Hot spot causing head warpage or deck warp. Check with feeler guage and straightedge. Hope not....
Bent rod due to hydrostatic lock? Just thinking......

Fred

 

We don't yet know if that piece of gasket got torn off and is still on the head.

 

The piece of gasket was laying in the tray.

The gaskets are felpro.

I freshened up this motor a couple of years ago and straight edged the heads and block. I also milled .080 off of the 12.250:1 pistons. I could still be geting some detonation.

 

Wow, Your Pistons use a Proud Dome, depending on your Head volume, compression could be well above 11.1. At this level you should really step up to a performance gasket.
A Performance gasket will offer a solid core base, the stock gasket that failed is much weaker and uses a perforated core, you can see that in all the dimples. Solid core resists failure of this type and helps hold your torque value. The Performance Gaskets all have Stainless Steel Fire rings around the cylinder and some are wire reinforced. Your block looks good to me as do the pistons. Make sure to let the engine cool after your first start up and when cold, Re Torque the gaskets. Although Fel Pro sells non Retorque head gaskets they will tell you a Performance Engine will always benifit from a Re Torque. Your enigne is on the Edge and you need all the help you can get to avoid Gasket Failure.
Let us know if you need help choosing the part number. To get it right we need to know what year your block is.

This Failure is classic Detonation failure. The pressure created by detonation lifts the head by streching the head bolts, the fire will blow out at the weakest link where it sees the most strech. Look at the distance between head bolts where it failed. Make sure the block and head were not compromised by the flame blowing accross them. A good straight edge can show if you are still flat on both. Really examine close the area that failed because a blow torch of flame burned this gasket out.

Hope this helps.

 

Some gasket material can tear off with removal but not the Fire Ring. The Fire Ring is Tough and made of steel. For the piece to be missing the Fire Ring was Torched out before the other part of the gasket was removed. This one is missing more than an inch of the Fire Ring. Some of the Deck or some of the head may have been torched off along with it, I hope not but you need to check. In extreme cases I have seen a 1/4 inch groove cut where the gasket blew out. Lets hope this is not that serious.

 

Thanks for the info. I have not had time to do much this week to the car. Just feeling the burned out areas with my fingers it feels fine. I will clean it up and straight edge it this weekend. Im going to go ahead and replace both gaskets. The motor is a late 70s early 80s stock bore 454 LS7. This is a real XCH code LS7. I will have to check the exact date. what gasket do you suggest. This block does have the extra coolant holes.

Jeff

 

Are you running cast iron heads?
Stock bore? 4.250
Fel Pro has the 1017-1 with a Steel solid core and the fire ring is a strong Stainless steel with a pre flattened wire inside the fire ring to help avoid detonation damage and hold the very high cylinder pressure. This gasket has a 4.540 bore so it allows large over bores and is probably the most popular upgrade when racing or running high HP.

Fel Pro also has the 1037, this one has two advantages over the 1017-1.

The 1037 is a Stainless steel solid core gasket with the same wire reinforced fire ring.
The Stainless core resists detonation damage 3 times longer than a Steel core and it won't rust if used in Marine use. It also uses a smaller bore size of 4.370. This will increase compression some. This gasket is 9.7 CC vrs the 1017-1 at 10.5cc total volume.

Some might ask why not upgrade to a MLS gasket on this engine. MLS will out perform even these very good performance gaskets but MLS needs a very smooth surface or the gasket will fail. Since this engine is built already and probably not coming out of the car I don't see MLS as an option. Fel Pro MLS gaskets need at minimum a 60 RA finish. The standard Fel Pro gasket can work well up to a 120 RA.

With all this said Detonation burned out this gasket. Putting better gaskets in without fixing the issue will move the problem to the next weakest link, that may be a piston or piston ring.

The 1017-1 has a second option of 1017-2, the -2 is .051 thick with a volume of 13.7cc if you want to lower compression a little using the gasket for this purpose.

Hope this helps.

 

Westlotorn, I'm on the sidelines reading this topic and I have to comment on the fact that I'm "going to school" and DO appreciate your insight and instruction on this.

Thanks for your expertise input!



Jim
In God We Trust!

 

Me too

 

[QUOTE=6T5RUSH;1579021056]Westlotorn, I'm on the sidelines reading this topic and I have to comment on the fact that I'm "going to school" and DO appreciate your insight and instruction on this.

and also on Paul's (Subfixer) detonation lose of two pistons.