The Cart Before the Horse: Spec 3 Build

[Senor_Taylor]

Welp, engine overheated really badly on the first session of a three day event at VIR. Spent the entire weekend trying to figure it out including bleeding the system a bunch, swapping thermostats, gutting a thermostat, pulling apart the whole cooling system etc. It kept getting worse and worse and eventually it became clear that the head gasket was blown.

What I think happened was a test port on the radiator was not torqued after I had the radiator pressure tested and it slowly backed out and eventually let out coolant only under pressure on track. I kept trying to do things to fix it and it would overheat and I think that eventually killed the head gasket. The head had already been milled and they had to take even more off this time so my hopes are not high that this will not go south again, but we will see. Currently have the head back on the car with a new thicker gasket and copper gasket spray applied to both sides. Hoping to find time this weekend to get it all back together.

I also managed to scratch up the head when trying to place it the first time when it got hung on the header stud. Yikes.