car drinks antifreez like i drink beer!

[Zak Mach]

my car drinks antifreeze like crazy. i think its boiling up & out of the coolent bottle. i have to refill my bottle every morning. can anyone tell me whats wrong??

[Trev_Scott]

I also have a similar problem.

Have you tried pressure testing you system for any leaks?
Compression test?

Just a thought, I did both and still cant seem to find out whats goin on. I only seem to loose coolant when i go into full boost.

Do you lose coolant under normal driving conditions or just when you give her shit?

[Constantin Morosan]

My brothers  First Eclipse was a 95 turbo .

it was pushing  the coolant out due to a cracked head  . and if its the case it's not gonna be pretty  if you dont fix it now because your car will run out of coolant over heat and end up on the side of the road like my bro did . but i think that would be the worst case senario.

just my two  cents.

[Mike Schmid]

If you're losing coolant under boost chances are it's the headgasket.  The increased cylinder pressures stretch the head bolts and unseals the gasket enough to majorly pressurize the coolant system.  Head clamps down again off boost.  It should be especially bad if you're knocking because knock drastically increases cylinder pressures.  

I betcha ARPs and a new head gasket fix it.

If it's loosing coolant all the time no matter how you drive check for leaks.  Inspect your rad cap carefully.  I was loosing a gallon or more a week once and it never leaked a drop on the ground.  I could not find the leak until I popped the hood and manually revved the motor to find a little stream of coolant pissing out onto the hot motor and evaporating around 3000rpm.  It was a bad rad cap seal.  Right now I have a bad Tstat gasket that does the same thing.  

I'd rev the motor and look for leaks.  Then a coolant pressure test to find leaks is where I would start (it's quiet so sometimes you can hear the leaks).  Followed by a combustion gas test (the one where the blue fluid turns yellow, or vice versa, when you stick that clear tube in the rad cap opening and run the motor).

[Martin Raska]

Start with the simple like checking the radiator cap before anything else.  You could experience some what appears to be boiling out of the overflow bottle if its bad.

[Trev_Scott]

If you're losing coolant under boost chances are it's the headgasket.  The increased cylinder pressures stretch the head bolts and unseals the gasket enough to majorly pressurize the coolant system.  Head clamps down again off boost.  It should be especially bad if you're knocking because knock drastically increases cylinder pressures.  

So neither a coolant pressure test or a compression test would confirm this would it?

If this is the case and it's only lifting the head under boost (20-22psi) would replacing the studs with arp's and torquing it down solve the problem?

[Cole MacDonald]

my car drinks antifreeze like crazy. i think its boiling up & out of the coolent bottle. i have to refill my bottle every morning. can anyone tell me whats wrong??

I just had the same problem last week. Pulled the head and found cylinder #2 was pressurizing the coolant passage under boost. Mine was also pissing out the overflow. Put in a new 5 layer gasket, had the head planed to a mirror finish and bought a set of ARP's and all is now good.

[Mike Schmid]

If it's lifting the head a coolant pressure test won't force the coolant the other way into the cylinders.  You get maybe 25psi MAX out of a coolant pressure test, no where near enough to lift the head.  A compression test probably won't tell you much either, it's only happening on boost and the dynamic pressures would be alot higher than what you get from cranking.  Again, not enough pressure to make it happen.  

Replacing the bolts with studs one at a time might do it.  I don't know, it's not the right way but sometimes doing stuff halfassed like that can work.  2Gs are torque to yield too so you might get away with it.  But again, the proper way would be to pull the head, clean everything real good, clean the threads out in the holes, lube it all up properly and then install the studs.  If you can do the work yourself you could give it a try, worst that could happen is you have to do it twice I guess.  I suppose there's potential to warp the head by doing it one at a time, not in the proper sequence.  I don't know if it's that big a deal since you're torquing one down while the others are already torqued down tho.  I think it would be a bigger deal to torque one down while the others are totally loose.

The other thing is once the headgasket seal is compromised like that you might never get it to seal properly again no matter how hard you clamp it.  So that's a potential problem too.

[Trev_Scott]

Well i think im going try that route first. Worst case i have to pull the head and i lose like 1/2hr of my time from replacing the studs.

[Trev_Scott]

Ok got the arp's in today.
My question is, when i replace the stock stud with an arp do i fully torque it down in one step?
Every thing iv read says to do it in steps 40 60 80, but i believe thats for when you pull the head.

[Cole MacDonald]

Torque it down in steps, definitely not all at once.

[James Tingsted]

I would think when replacing one stud at a time you would fully torque it down one bolt at a time.

[Cole MacDonald]

Didn't realize you were talking about doing one at a time without taking the head off :oops:

[Zak Mach]

anyone here know the proper radiator cap size/type i need to buy?

[Ritchie Hui]

anyone here know the proper radiator cap size/type i need to buy?

i think 13lbs was the spring tension, but correct me if im wrong...

i just went to lordco and asked for a turbo rad cap.