My E30 head story.

[Az3ar]

Well it's a long story but I am trying to make my decision soon by the end of the week and I have turned to you guys for help.

It seems that my 325is is having issues on the track after few hard sessions. The issue is that my coolant will start to shoot out of my cap like if it was pressurized. Well I bled the system right and when I started my session I had no issues but in the end of the day my coolant hoses are so hard because my coolant is full of air and we basically don't know where the air is coming from.

Here is my engine shape.

Perfect cylinder compression
No oil or coolant mix NONE
No loss of power.
No loss of oil or coolant
Front corner passenger leaky head gasket

After a lot of searching we think that some air is escaping from the combustion chamber to the coolant galleys through my head gasket under very heavy load. That will pressurize the coolant system to a point where my hoses are stiffer than a rock. After every session I have to bleed my coolant system and the car is back on the road like new. If I don't bleed it I will blow one of my hoses and the engine starts to over heat and heater won't blow hot air.

I am going to buy a tool tomorrow to test my coolant for carbon and combustion air but it seems after many searches that I either have one of the following:

Bad head gasket (most likely)
Cracked head (maybe)
Cracked block (not likely)

Well here is what I did including parts and labor since I am going to start this week.

I ordered:

Head gasket kit includes every gasket I need and valve seals.
Timing belt, water pump
Head bolts total is ~$200 for parts

Removing the head at my friends shop and reinstalling it is $475

Taking the head to pro machine shop and doing the following

Check for pressure and cracks $65
Milling the head $65
Do 3 angle valve job and change any valve guides that are worn and disassemble the whole engine and reassemble everything. $375
Valve guides $18 each

Now my bill is about $1200 that's if all my guides are hosed and I know my luck.

Simply my head will be like new (my car has 161K) Now I have worked and removed my EVO head before with someone help and it was not hard (I was eating when he was doing my timing belt )

Now what do you guys think I should do? Buy a whole new head and not spend the $721 on fixing everything (worst case is $721 maybe it will be $505)? What if the new head is not as good as mine? What do they go for?

Finally should I do it myself and save the $475? I have the manual and I am going to read it from cover to cover this week.

Anyone in NoVa who wants to help me and I can give them some money (they must have done it before)

Any special tools for this job?

I am sorry for the long post but I want to tackle the job right.

Thanks

Screwed

[Widge]

I'm not really an expert but you must have one hell of an engine cos I've never heard of head gaskets leaking like that. The only thing I can thingk of, apart from what you have said, is that there was a recall in the 90's on the headertank caps which could be over pressurising your system. I dunno but it's worth a try, good luck with it mate

[Simon13]

so someone has offered u a different head now? i'm a little lost

[miniblob]

I had a similar kind of problem on my last 325 ( a few years back! ) - changed all sorts of stuff, radiators, hoses, etc, bled it endlessly, had it looked at by three local garages - kind of gave up in the end and sold it to someone I know locally for a stupidly cheap price, thinking it could be the head or something - he changed the water pump and all was well!!!!

Don't understand it, but changing the water pump fixed it!!!! Dunno if air was getting in through the pump or what - weird eh?

May not be your prob - i'm by no means qualified to give you an answer, but could be worth a try!!!