Tuscan MKII 2005 blown head gasket!

[brem]

I lost a bit faith in the Speed Six... On a track day last week I drove for half an hour on the race track and all was quite normal. 90 degree water and about 94 degree oil temp. After that parked my Tuscan and went for lunch. Back from lunch I couln't start the engine. First looked like a flat battery.
Tried to jump start but no way - engine was not turning. So we had a closer look to the engine and cyl. 4 and 6 were flooded with water.
End of track day for me!
After disassembling the engine we found the failure in the head gasket and there is some slackness in the con rod bearing on cyl. 6.
Head, valves and camshafts look good so far.

Any recommendations on what do upgrade expect the damaged parts? Car is 2005 with 24k.

Thanks........Peter


First there was a lot of fun...!



then this!!!

[supercopa]

sorry for you Peter

had the same thing on my Mk1 Tuscan S : head gasket blown away on cylinder 6 and the re-blew away on 3rd cyl...

I'm looking forward an advice too.

[tail slide]

Sorry to hear that.

There are several types of uprated headgaskets now eg copper, but not all the same. Richard who runs Dulford Automotive could advise range of S6 options (01884 266675). Other straightforward mods also available.

[s6boy]

Can't offer any advice, only sorry to hear you having trouble of any sort after all the work you've done and help and advice you've offered.
Really hope you get this worked out as well as everything else you've done.

[Bodmin]

you where lucky not to have hyrdalocked the engine, mind you that play in no.6 cyl bearing may be as a result.

I would recommend you get the conrod inspected for distortion/twisting when it is dismantled.

From what I understand the copper headgaskets that have been mentioned can be a bugger of a job seal correctly.

Bodders

[tail slide]

Bodmin said:

From what I understand the copper headgaskets that have been mentioned can be a bugger of a job seal correctly.

There have been probs with sealing waterways, so they need a number of mods but can then apparently provide better seal than alternatives, esp around combustion chamber.

[brem]

Yes I was lucky that this did not happen whilst driving!
I'll have checked the con rods etc. and replace all the bearings from con rods and crankshaft. also balance the crankshaft.

I saw there is a steel head gasket form RG and also from TVR power. Any experience with those?

Other recommentations to make the engine more reliable are welcome! As the engine is out and disassembled.

Peter

[tail slide]

brem said:

I saw there is a steel head gasket form RG and also from TVR power. Any experience with those?

Not personally, but both are experienced suppliers of S6 parts.

brem said:

Other recommentations to make the engine more reliable are welcome! As the engine is out and disassembled.

This is still a 'work-in-progress' by many companies, with many minor mods and some major mods being fairly recent, and being proved or otherwise at the moment. Not all standard engines have probs it seems, but many aspects of the engine design & set-up are close to the limit, and the extra stress of trackdays often finds them. IMO best to go to one of the experienced S6 engine builders if it's not with one already.

Edited by tail slide on Saturday 23 August 23:21

[HarryW]

May be an optical illusion of the picture, but if you look at the top right of the head it looks like the unshrouding of the valve has been opened up into the gasket sealing ring landing area . Are all the other cylinders like this . I'd second sentiment that copper gaskets are harder to get a good initial seal.

[yzf1070]

HarryW said:

if you look at the top right of the head it looks like the unshrouding of the valve has been opened up into the gasket sealing ring landing area .

Agreed and I doubt its an optical illusion. Any standard replacement gasket is going to go the same way.

[ian_r]

bad news, but could have been worse. did you manage to take the head off without taking the engine out? just wondering for possible future reference and did you make your own timing marks?

[brem]

brem said:

As the engine is out and disassembled.

Peter

All the engine work is done by Eggimann Cars in Sissach (www.eggimann-cars.ch)

[jonolondon]

Hi - I also had a blown head-gasket on my 2005 Tuscan 2 - with only 6k miles on it at the time...

Cylinder 6 was the culprit and apparently it is usually the culprit as does run hot...

Austec did the engine work and replaced the head-gasket with a version manufactured to their own spec which has extra cooling slots built into it.

They did tell me though that the 05 cars (mine included) have lots of engine bits that have been strengthened, improved since the early cars were manufactured and that now it *should* be good for 50k miles...

Paul at Austec is very very knowledgable (www.austec.co.uk) and the car really was running like a Swiss watch when I picked it up - noticeably better than when I bought it originally...

Hope that helps,
Jonathan.

[KillerJim]

jonolondon said:

They did tell me though that the 05 cars (mine included) have lots of engine bits that have been strengthened, improved since the early cars were manufactured and that now it *should* be good for 50k miles...

Good to hear. I`ve only 15k miles on the '05 Sagaris, 35k miles of grinning to go - not sure my face can take much more

J