I rebuilt the engine in this car about 3-5K miles ago and the last time I had it out on the road for a club event I noticed it was running just a tiny bit warmer than usual, but not overheating by any means.
Over the next few weeks every time I checked it, it was low on coolant. So I got out the trusty coolant pressure tester and put 15 psi on it, 20 min later it was down to about 5 psi. Ruhroh....
I looked everywhere and could not find a leak, so I pulled the plugs out for a look see......
So I ran compression next and sure enough #2 and #3 were both low, so......off with it's head!!!
Clearly water has been getting into those two cylinders, the gasket didn't look nearly as bad as I thought it would, but a leak is a leak. When I built the engine I had the block and head skimmed so I would have a good straight clean surface. I'm running 10.3-1 compression, so not terrible. The gasket I used is the same composite one I use when I build a race motor too.
So today I went ahead and cleaned up the block, locktited in the head studs (I've had them back out before, but none of these were loose) as a precaution and put a new composite gasket in place.
Tomorrow I'll get the head all cleaned up and put it back together......
