I have a leaky head gasket or some other such problem as shown here...
http://home.ripway.com/2005-7/363425...oldexhaust.wmv

The question is then, is water and antifreeze going to cause me to fail a sniffer test? I don't think that any of this is oil cause I got a new lower half of the engine just 10,000 miles ago.

If the video fails to load, I only have 10 megs of transfer space per 24 hours....
Thats a stock 86 w/ aluminum heads, and an exhaust system that has holes in the intermediate pipes and in the mufflers, if you're curious about the sound.
This is also the 'before' video that I recorded so I can compare the sound of my Corsa's when they arrive.

 

you had better fix that before you have to get another new bottom end.

As for passing, water injection never hurt a thing.

 

hopin i got your attention for a few posts, how could I get my bottom half replaced and yet get white smoke already. Doesnt it stand to reason that when they swap the cylinder heads they would replace the gasket etc.. etc...
did my shop cheap out on me?

 

To me that looks more like oil smoke.

With that much smoke if it is water you must be really loosing water or blowing it out the overflow. Also, if it is water you probably have about a gallon in your oil pan by now.

Don't know if you had any work done to the heads but they could be warped or cracked. Not sure about on the L98 w/aluminum heads but my daughters LT1 Formula says to replace the headbolts every time the heads come off.

 

well im planning to change my oil this week so ill see that soon, but i have not observed my water level going down that much or my oil getting burnt off especially fast.
I can't help but wonder if i have a little of both?!?

 

You're in Harrisburg?
I'm near Hershey...

If you have the same emissions testing as me, there is NO sniffer test for emissions.

I passed my emissions test with a hollow cat converter.

I'm not entirely sure if it varies from county to county. I think you'd have to check with Daulphin county (is that Harrisburg's co.?) to see what their rules are.

 

hm....

there is a test kit that will confirm the presense of exhaust gases in the coolant.

As for the engine, you just rebuilt the bottom end? and didn't refresh the heads? Thats a bad idea.

You see, rings and heads wear at the same basic rate. If you refresh the block (re: Rings) and not the head, the newly found additional compression has to go somewhere, in this case, out the valve seals.

The same thing applies to a head job on an old motor.

Several years ago, a co-worker had a late 80s Honda Civic. It served her just fine. We were chatting about it one day, and I ask, how many miles, "about 100k miles", she said. I told her, get the timing belt changed ASAP, you are on borrowed time.

Well, the long and the short of it is that her hubby was a cheap old bastard, who didn't believe in preventitive maintenance. After she suggested it, and he nixed it, the belt tossed and tore up the motor.

They took it to some podunk garage who was gonna rebuild the head (mainly, cause the honda dealer suggested rebuilding the entire motor and that was just too expensive for Mr. Knowitall).

When she told me they were redoing the head, I said, "Connie, you will be sucking more oil outta that tired block then you will know what to do with." She replied, "they know what they are doing."

Two weeks later, she returns to work, in her Civic, killing every skeeter in Delaware.

She walked over, and I said something like, "do you want me to say I told you so?"

They unloaded it.

The bottom line, when you go into a motor that deep, you must be willing to go all the way.

And change the timing belt before it snaps. F'n morons.

 

well thanks for the advice.. I intend to follow through on checking everything out.

when i bought my vette i was about as knowledgeable as my mom about cars, its only in the last year or so that I knew enough to even understand you last post.

sad but true...

so when they told me i needed a new engine, and I had alot of disposable income burning a hole in my pocket, (i was in the navy and living at the barracks) I said "go ahead and do the work" without ever once realizing that I could have upgraded to an LT or LS1 for not much more, or even having much idea of what work they were actually doing.

(i changed the oil and heard some bad knocking, took it to the shop and they soon showed me the.... (bushing?) that goes around the crankshaft and holds the connecting arm was wore down so that the crankshaft was taking impact damage every time the piston fired. the old heavy oil was hiding the problem....)

My corvette was a lemon and I got fleeced, but I'm pretty proud of the way it runs today. I made a youthful mistake in buying it that I wouldn't let happen again.


edit: im actually in cumberland county, mike. As I understand it, there's no sniffer test on a car that gets less than X,XXX miles per year, but mine is a daily driver and I think I'm pushing the limit...
In december it will be a classic and then no emissions at all.

 

Anything less than 5000 miles per year is overlooked in PA.

 

If you run it less then 5,000 miles: you're completely exempt from emissions. You can run straight pipes, they dont care.

If your emissions is the same as my county (lebanon) in PA, you won't have a sniffer test, only a visual. They'll look to see if your Cat and AIR equipment is there... not actually check what the car is spitting out.

In any case, it sounds like your learning- and thats half the battle with these cars. I was in the same boat as you when I bought my '85. I only lucked out that the awful knocking I heard was coming from the catalytic converter. Anyway, Good luck with the car