The Time I Blew the Head Gasket

Having any car for nearly 10 years, there will be car problems. But throwing a car obsessed teenager behind the wheel of a performance enhanced vehicle, you best believe I beat on it. And that has led me to trouble a time or two. Including curbing the wheel on an icy road and of course, blowing the engine... well nearly.

It was a regular winter night in early 2020, I took some friends for a spin and my cousin, Braydon said, "I haven't heard it with the new parts, lets hear it!" I had just upgraded the external wastegate, ID 1050 injectors, TGV deletes and a new turbo. Needless, to say I was pumped about my car and wanted to show off, so I did a pull. Next thing I know there was a pop, smoke started pouring out of the engine and the car just stopped right in the middle of the road. We jumped out and pushed it off the side of the road and eventually ended up towing it home.

After a lot of diagnostics tests including a compression test, I concluded it was a head gasket. I was lucky enough to have a family friend with the tools and space to pull the motor out. I pulled the heads off to do the head gaskets and head studs and found out that not only was the head gasket bad, the heads were actually cracked. I had to completely replace them. 2.0 liter heads are hard to come by new unless through the dealership and I wasn't ready to pay the hefty price of over $1,800 for a blank casting, so I found rebuilt heads off a JDM 2.0 liter a twin turbo legacy. I moved forward with these unique specs and continued putting it back together. I did all new timing components. Upon the first startup, I realized I didn't install cam seals. Grudgingly, I pulled the motor a second time, removed all the timing components again to install the needed cam seals. I thought everything was great, but it didn't take long before leaked everywhere. So, I had to pull the motor yet again! On our third time we found out there was an extra oil port for the twin turbo. After finally, covering all our bases we were back on the road.

Once you pull the motor out of a car, you are bound for life. So don't ask me if I will ever sell her, if it hadn't already been a deal sealed, it sure is after lifting her engine out 3 times in one go!