SOLVED: See pics below, blown head gasket.

Not more than 1,000 miles ago finally got the car fixed and running smooth. Replaced my valve covers for leaky spark plug tube seals, and new spark plugs.

I gradually notice that the car will sometimes have a hard time catching idle, and will fall through idle RPM into a stall as if the momentum of the lightweight flywheel isn't enough or something. Doesn't stall at idle, idles smooth, but if I go neutral or clutch in from mid-high RPM, it falls through idle and stalls occasionally, unless I catch it with the gas pedal, or gently downshift to settle the RPMs slowly into idle speed.

Now today I turn on the engine and BAM: P0011, P0021, P0031! A 1, 2, 3 **** you from my car haha. I've changed both camshaft position sensors less than 40 thousand miles ago, and removed, disassembled, inspected, and re-installed both intake valve solenoids when I was doing the valve cover job less than 1,000 miles ago; they looked clean inside, and the plugs appear fine also.

I'm assuming initially that I have a bad o2 sensor is throwing everything off (I was dumping fuel into the catalytic converters when my car was misfiring for a 1,000 miles or so, and my exhaust smells like fuel still with occasional smoke). I'm pretty sure I destroyed the catalytic converters, and looks like the sensors too. I'm thinking about just replacing the cats with test pipes, and new o2 sensors. What do you think? It couldn't be timing could it, 115k miles, haven't adjusted, but... I just doubt it, don't know why.

Camshaft Position - Timing Over-Advanced or System Performance (Bank 1)
Camshaft Position - Timing Over-Advanced or System Performance (Bank 2)
Heated O2 Sensor Heater Control Circuit Low (Bank 1 Sensor 1)

Edit: Driving around town some more now, I notice excessive white smoke (oh no, please no... I don't want to do that). I also can feel incremental stair-step like misfires. Please just be my o2 sensor! Faulty o2 sensor cause white smoke.... somehow (I hope)? or coolant burning into exhaust causing faulty o2 sensor (please no)?

Edit 2: Drove to Autozone to get a headgasket testing kit, and noticed slight fluctuations in oil pressure at a steady 2k RPM cruise speed. Then noticed very low oil pressure at idle, ****... I think my headgasket is gone, and I haven't even performed the test yet. At autozone, had another OBD2 test that came up P0021, P0011, P0300... so now P0031 is gone, but I have P0300 lol.

Edit 3: Noticed oil at 1/3 of oil dip stick from L to H. Also noticed coolant reservoir below minimum line... but used the headgasket testing kit... this thing: and fluid stayed blue for like 5 minutes of hand pumping the little sucker, until I got bored and squeezed vigorously and continuously which only resulted in me sucking coolant into the container lol. So at this point I now don't think I have a leaky headgasket or cyllinder heads. What the hell else causes white smoke? Coolant is green, oil isn't milky. Apparently no hydrocarbons in the coolant system, but I will try it again later tonight to see if it makes a difference... need to put my car outside the garage though because it is smoking up a storm.

Edit 4: Went to get a 6 pack of beer down at the gas station, beesh is smoking white like cumulus nimbus cloud layers.... Pretty sure I'm fkd.

 

Maybe no ones replying because I should just accept the fact that it is what I fear it is?

Engine is becoming increasingly hard to start (sounds like hydrolocking almost... :O) coupled with these other symptoms, I'm assuming cracked cyllinder or head gasket. **** me. How much should I expect to pay for labor, I'm guesstimating it's a 9 hour job about?

I found cylinder heads and gaskets $100 for both, $30 per gasket at least

 

Seems like you need to replace left and right side Camshaft position sensors, Left and right O2 sensors and thats not too expensive and you can DIY! But the head gasket replacement is the most expensive labor cost to fix! Get price quotation from other shops and see how expensive it is!

 

I replaced both camshaft position sensors, since I have a free lifetime warranty on them. That wasn't the problem, car is still hard to start after it stalls, but otherwise starts fine if it has been sitting for a while (I'm thinking because excessive fuel in one or more cyllinders is causing a flooded situation, but when it sits for a while the fuel evaporates?). No milky coolant in oil. No exhaust blowing through the radiator. Harsh unburnt fuel smell from exhaust.

So my guess is a fuel injector at this point. Going to pull spark plugs soon to diagnose which cylinder may be getting overdosed with fuel. Also planning on replacing crank pos sensor since someone suggested that to me, and I think that's the only sensor I haven't checked on the car that might cause some of the problems similar to this, but really not sure.

 

Have you hooked the car up to a scan tool and checked the long term fuel trim and short term fuel trim and all the O2 sensor voltage (both banks) and lambda readings? You should run a full PID diagnostic scan the next time you take a long drive and record it from cold to hot and let the scan tool keep running for about a half hour, if you have enough space to record that. The information you get from doing this will tell you a LOT about what's going on with your car.

 

Burning oil would cause that. If you're not pulling any hydrocarbons out of the radiator with the combustion leak detector after 1 minute, you can pretty much count out a blown head gasket. The color of the testing liquid usually changes within a few seconds if the head gasket's blown.

 

Yeah, I'm thankful it didn't change, and was actually expecting it to. The exhaust smells like gas, unburned fuel from what I can gather through the interwebz. Google searches and other car forum/thread posts leads me to believe an excessive rich condition caused by leaky injector/o-rings. Maybe o2 sensors, but had a guy stop by yesterday and doesn't think it's o2 sensors because they take time to warm up before affecting anything apparently? Is that true? I am 90% sure catalytic converters are clogged and o2 sensors possibly fouled from when I previously had leaky spark plug tube seals causing misfires... since then fixed that problem, but 900 miles later this happens.

 

The O2 sensors have built-in heating elements, so they get up to temperature quickly. Within half a minute or so, they should be giving you enough information to know if they're good or bad. A scan tool with live read functions will give you a fairly quick diagnosis on them.

Check your spark plug tubes again. Your problem may have resurfaced.

For what it's worth, my car went through both factory cats in under 22,000 miles. My 02 sensors are reading fine, and my short term and long term fuel trims look ok. I get an occasional misfire on cyl. 6, but it's only like 2 or 3 every hour, so I'm not too worried about that. I may try cleaning my injectors, but I'm not hopeful that I'll ever get to the bottom of why the cats are such a problem.

Before you throw money at parts, throw money at a decent scan tool. The Autel MD 802 is worth every penny.

 

Head-gasket leak confirmed, white smoke... but apparently it's bluish and just looks white to me , consuming 1qt at least of oil with only a few miles driven per day, oil spattering out exhaust onto my white painted rear bumper , smoky hot inside valve cover (due to low oil and oil consumption) when I went to add more oil ...see pics:

Passenger side bank:


Driver side bank:


o2 Sensors (oily driver side one):


After x-tube:


So.... I already have the HR head gasket, and HR head bolts. Just need to have it taken apart, hope I don't have a cracked cyllinder head, redeck them, machine the coolant passage for the HR head gasket, and put it all together

Found a guy selling Ferrea comp valve train for a good price, I'm going to pull the trigger on it, and port match the heads. I need suggestions on NA cams, JWT maybe? But which? I'm no expert. Also need suggestion on a matching set of headers. Guy selling the valve train mentioned HR headers being a cheap option, and I'm sure I could just have the flange modified to fit DE test pipes. Also going to need to pick up some engine management system.

I'd like to rev to 7000 at least, higher if the lower end can handle it.

I'm Stock compression, (buying Motordyne V1 test pipes), Bassani Exhaust (2 1/4" dia. tube in, with resonators and "X" Crossover, dual 4x8 mufflers, 2 1/2" dia. out, 4" single wall dual slash cut polished stainless tips with billet inserts, stock location exit).

 

Aww, damn dude. Sorry to hear that. I'd at least get a straight edge (Central Tools or Starrett are good brands) and a decent set of feeler gauges and check for warpage on the head and block decks. If you find warpage, call around to find out how much it's going to cost to get re-surfaced. Sucks, but usually fixable. Let us know what you end up doing.