Does this seem like a lower intake gasket problem? (3100)

[99RegalGS]

Yesterday my dad told me his car (has 3100) was running really bad again. It's been running bad for awile now and it's getting worse. Today I had some free time so I pulled the plugs and found this.

 

Cyl #2

 

Cyl #4 (was worse, knocked some of the ash off)

 

Cyl #6

 

Cyl #5

 

Cyl #3 plug wire was a pita so I left it in.

 

Cyl #1 Very clean

 

Then I pulled off the oil cap..

 

So I figured leaking lower intake manifolds. Does this sound correct?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

EDIT: also the coolant didn't smell like coolant. Smelled like gas.. maybe I'm looking at a head gasket problem instead???

[manitcor]

im going to vote head gasket, you notice any visble leaking along the intake or head seals?

 

Look down around the coolant neck and also in that little hole between the PS pump and the water pump where your cam sensor wire goes. These areas should be clean and bone dry.

[99RegalGS]

I did pull the intake manifold off completely, just in case.

 

There was oil leaking on both sides of the block. and that area by the cam sensor wasn't dry at all!!

 

Also there was this brown crap in a couple of the coolant passages. I took a picture of it (picture #11)

Here's the rest of the pics.

http://www.jbarbieri.net/~gsregal/3100intake/

[R Dubya]

yeah with those heads looking like that i would definetely remove them and replace the gaskets and have them cleaned. make sure you clean the hell out of the block passages too as it will cause a HG failure if it gets too hot in there. Water needs to flow not sit. Looks like you may even have a failure anyway. You are that far I wouldn't suggest coming back up without doing that.

[99RegalGS]

Thanks guys, I'll go over it with my dad tomorrow (his car), before I start tearing off the heads.

[manitcor]

have the machine shop do a 3 angle valve job on the heads, make sure you get your lower intake gasket and bolts from GM (the lower intake gasket needs to have the metal discs and you need the new GM bolts with the torque specs)

 

you can get the rest of the headgasket kit from FelPro, make sure you goto a hub store though, sattalite parts stores are still trying to sell the old kit.

 

Have fun.

[Pabz]

 

They should look like this after there done,

 

 

I wasnt too happy with the Felpro head gasket kit, as they had the wrong exhaust valve stem seals (small blue ones ) Where ever you take your heads to get finished they should have headgasket kits, if he does a valve job, leave the springs and valves on. Also get a complete kit for you motor, mine did not include exhaust manifold gaskets. The guy that did my heads did not recommend felpro. But i got 150 psi compression per cylinder. Thats a 2.8

[Pabz]

Oh both ran me $327 CDN, 7% tax too.

[manitcor]

 

They should look like this after there done,

 

 

I wasnt too happy with the Felpro head gasket kit, as they had the wrong exhaust valve stem seals (small blue ones ) Where ever you take your heads to get finished they should have headgasket kits, if he does a valve job, leave the springs and valves on. Also get a complete kit for you motor, mine did not include exhaust manifold gaskets. The guy that did my heads did not recommend felpro. But i got 150 psi compression per cylinder. Thats a 2.8

 

The old kit has the blue seals, I just redid my heads with thier revised kit. thier new LIM doenst have the metal discs like GMs but is much beefier than the orignal OEM. I still didnt feel comfortbale using it so I got the GM gasket. The rest of the kit was good though, they had the organgel valve stem seals which if im not mistaken is just OEM seals. The new kit also included full new injector o-ring set and a tube of locktite for the head bolts.

[99RegalGS]

Alright, Just got the ok from my dad, so off comes the heads!!

 

I'm not sure my dad's going to so for a 3 angle valve job since this is just his daily driver.

 

I already got a LIM gasket kit yesterday from Napa. I remember seeing metal somewhere in it, but I'll look at it closer if I am to use it.

 

Thanks for the tips though guys.

[manitcor]

3 angle is just better for the overall running of the car and only is about $25 bucks more, after all you are going to have the heads surfaced right?

[99RegalGS]

Not sure lol. Depends how fast he wants this done...

 

Anyway. those gaskets don't have any metal around the sealing surfaces, just for the dowel pins. I guess that's a decent upgrade since nearly all of the origional ones broke off when I removed the gasket.

 

And I didn't get much done today. Mainly because I cracked my 3/8" drive 15mm socket and then shattered my 1/2" drive extention after I switched to my 15mm (12 point) 1/2 socket. Those head bolts are on tight!!

[Canada]

A valve job just helps the valve seal......there really isn't any *performance* gain to be had at all.