FFS I have an engine problem *Confirmed Cylinder Crack*

Had a great day at Beaulieu last weekend (apart from the hay fever) but noticed the car started running a little rough just as I was arriving home...car also almost stalled pulling out of a junction as I seemed to lose all power. Car was running fine after this until Thursday. I was parked facing up a hill whilst it was raining for around 3 hours...got in the car at lunchtime, drove about 6 miles and I was parking up I got the CEL light and the engine started running really rough. Read the codes and had multiple misfires on cylinders 2, 3 and 4. Had this issue about 2 years ago in very similar circumstances, left it to 'dry' out and it was fine...changed the plugs and pack shortly after that. This time that method didn't work and as I started the car up later that evening it sounded like a big bag of spanners being shaken around, so i quickly shut it down and towed the car home. The packs and plugs were changed at 96K miles in March 201, i'm now at 107k miles so I wouldn't have thought the plugs/packs were an issue. I pulled them out from cylinders 2 and 3 and they looked fine. After putting the car back together It started up but the engine appeared to be shaking and running rough still...more on bank 1 than 2. I then started getting think white smoke coming out of the right exhaust pipe with a slight coolant scent...definitely a problem on bank 1. Came outside this morning and noticed a little drip on the floor which I thought was the water pump (felt a tad annoyed if it was as I changed that a couple of weeks ago)...got under to have a look and noticed the coolant was coming out of the exhaust flange :frustrated: :frustrated: :frustrated:

Have you checked the coolant level?

Yeah it's dropped below the min line now but we comfortably above it before the issues.

That much coolant coming through the exhaust and sounding like A bag of spanners would probably point to a cracked/chunked cylinder liner unfortunately. What does the coolant in the tank look like? You can do a pressure test on the coolant system to see if it will hold 1.3bar. This is a static test, I would not start it again..

Coolant in the tank looks normal, oil on the dip stick looks normal too. Haven't drained anything yet. Got someone coming out to look at it on Wednesday now. How terminal is a cranked liner? That something that could be repaired or is it a new engine?

Looking for the positives here...I guess I can now learn how to drop the engine and then fix/change anything else that may need doing that's easier with the engine out.

Supposing it is cracked liner, hartech et al. Will rebuild engine and replace cracked liners and make a closed deck and strenghteners so others won't oval and crack

Hi, Sorry to hear of your troubles, you must be at your wits end with sorry. Got a good bunch of Porsche minded friends here for support Hope all works out. Vinny

Ditto! Nothing useful to add, apart from don't panic until it has been looked at. Good luck! Fingers crossed for you. :thumb:

Are these cars susceptible to a good old head gasket failure?

would it not more likely to be the head gasket if its effecting all 3 cylinders on that side. Sorry to read this hope you sort it.

Cheers chaps Fingers crossed nothing too serious...or at least repairable.

That sucks dude. :nooo: Unfortunately there aren't many positives when it comes to coolant leaking out of the exhaust, although its strange that there isn't any oil/coolant mixing. I would guess it is oval bore leading to exhaust gasses escaping from the cylinder and into the coolant passages, pressurising the coolant system. Then when the engine is switched off the pressure in the coolant system will be higher than in the cylinders (due to no combustion) and then the coolant is being pushed back into the cylinders. The only way to diagnose this will be a strip down. A word of warning though, if you have coolant leaking from the exhaust like this do not start the car! There may be a pool of coolant in the cylinder which would hydrolock the engine if you fire it up! That would be a disaster! Good luck with it :thumb:

This happened to mine whilst I was on the motorway and so all of the coolant rushed in, hydrolocked, bent the rod, cracked the crank case and destroyed the crankshaft. If you look it at from that perspective, you've been lucky. Its not the head gasket as that wouldn't give the noises he was getting. Almost definitely a cracked liner. Dropping the engine is easy if you can do it yourself. Then pull off gearbox and all of the inlet and send the engine off for new liners.

Had a good chat with Grant at Hartech this morning and his initial thought was it sounded like a cracked cylinder. won't start it up again but will start stripping it down to send off...time to give it a new lease of life! glad I wasn't miles from home or stuck on a motorway so definitely dodged a bullet there as you say Stoo.c. I do take some pleasure knowing it wasn't the IMS uh: