Minnesota Focus Owners Club

Down with Fords... um yea. Well as of tonight we (Justin and I) as I talked to him on the phone think I either A) Blew my head, or B) Blew my head gasket. So yea the focus is down for a few days. I'm gonna do a comp test tommorow afternoon as I have to goto work now. I'm pretty pissed.

Here's what happened:
Took it out for a spin after putsing with some shit.
Waited until it was at optimal operating temps.
Turned onto the small Highway about 2 mi. from my house, got on it in 2nd gear (I wasn't spraying either), pulled normal, shifted into third, pulled good until I hit about 5k or so. Then I was still at WOT and the power just dropped. Pulled off, car was running like complete shit. Limped it home. Tested plug wires, they where all good. Check for a vac leak, found one small house was popped. Put it back on, idles decently, but if you give it gas it runs rought still. White smoke (like when you start your car up in the cold morning) coming out the tail pipe, smells funky.

Bummer....
Nils

damn, sorry to hear that, I hope it is something simple for you

sounds like a blown gasket to me...

Sorry Nils, good luck with that...

Smells funky sweet or just nasty?

May be an obvious point but a sweet smell is coolant for sure.

Another obvious point, check the oil. If it does not look like normal oil (milky grey or brown) you have coolant in the crankcase which is rather bad news for bearings.

what did you install?

When I had a big hole in my piston, and it ran fine/smooth idle, just smoked alot.

Pull the plugs and look at them.

One more thing...Did you just wash it? My old(your new) car ran crappy if i got the open element filter/maf wet.

i got a real fancy comp/relitve comp tester, but yeah test the comp, look at the plugs, get a stefascope and listen to your injectors. it may also be possible that you have a unmetered air leak. how do you have the air intake and maf set up? is it possible that a sillicone boot ripped/popped off, if you can get your hands on a four gas tester it would tell you right a way if you have a bad head/gasket. test the out put of : the alt , some times when they go bad they f wit the hole system since it has to draw from the batt. i would test the small shit first. a very smart tech once told me " keep it simple stupid, im not calling you stupid,..simple" what he ment is go for the easy test first. symptom, to system, to componet, to cause.

Bad/plugged cat?

Look for loss of fluids, and, notice colors of fluids.

Comp test. If its a gasket thats not so bad.

Oil looks ok, and there is no oil into my coolant. No I haven't washed it in the past 2 days. I just finished plugging in my new guages, so I didn't mess with anything that would have affected any of this. I'm gonna do a comp test when I get home, I'll check the plugs then. There are no vac leaks or any other leaks I can see/find/hear. The comp test will tell all.

BTW: My MAF is into my intake pipe, which has the MAF bracket welded in.

Also Roman did you put the copper headgasket on this engine or not? Justin was curious...
Thanks

It wouldn't be the cat either, well cause there isn't one

Pappy wrote: It wouldn't be the cat either, well cause there isn't one

I was just about to say that, I'm pretty sure that there isn't one.

Pappy wrote: Also Roman did you put the copper headgasket on this engine or not? Justin was curious...
Thanks

No, its all stock.

Well I did a compression test:
127 130 145 120

Also, the smoke looks to be water vapor possible burning off. There was a bit building up in my tail pipe when I ran it today. Also it sounds to me like my intake is sucking extremely loud. Any other ideas since the comp test looks pretty decent.
Thanks.

Look around your intke for any obvious leaks, try to unplug your maf and run the car, if it runs fine then you for sure have an unmetered air leak. I get water in my tail pipe also. I was told that means your fuel is getting a complete burn. I dunno, all my cars did it so...