Ok Drag Racers, I Have A Question For You.

[CarMichael Angelo]

Initial start on a new engine.

Would you consider doing it w/o water? I'm only talking long enough to heat cycle the engine (1-5 minutes, however long it takes to get the head hot enough to consider it "operating temp".

I will probably use a HF temp gun to monitor that if I do it, and again I'm only talking about water, not oil.

The reason for that is related to my conversation w/ the copper HG guy yesterday, and he wanted me to wait to add the water till just before a fire up, run the engine up to temp, and immediately drain the water below HG level for the head retorque, then permanently refill the engine after that. He stated that it was not uncommon for water to leak before that process. All I know is, I don't want a drip in the crank case fouling that oil if I can go through the initial start up w/o water.

I mean I did that on the Methanol fueled drag car, and nobody thinks twice about that because the Meth cools the engine, But that doesn't change the fact that there wasn't any water in the engine.

So, @84Ttop, @srtthis, @mikestang63 ,@90lxcoupe

Would you?

 

[90lxcoupe]

It probably wouldnt hurt anything but I personally would not. I also would not worry too much about contaminating the oil... I think a guy like you would not let the oil get to the point where it would become an issue.

When we dynoed my engine there was a water leak from the intake gasket and the head gaskets were seeping a decent amount before we retorqued them and my engine builder didnt even flinch, if a little seeps into the oil it will burn off when it gets hot enough, we dumped the oil before we made any power pulls and everything was good.

 

[84Ttop]

Personally, No I wouldn't run the engine at all with out water for fear of damaging something. For every motor I have ever ran with copper head gaskets, I have started the motor and ran it for 15-20 minutes to seat the rings and reach operating temps. After cooling the motor I would re torque the head studs one at a time loosening each a 1/4 turn and re torquing. I've never lost a substantial amount of water or even drained it back down in the interim for that matter

 

[srtthis]

i dont think id try it... when we ran water ports with copper gaskets in the NOS motor we ran a little bit of orange RTV around all the water ports. and it never leaked

 

[CarMichael Angelo]

OK then, Thanks guys.

 

[84Ttop]

Does this mean that we are close to hearing the Gila Monster run? Say the word and I'll ship you my go pro, fresh batteries and several SD cards

 

[mikestang63]

On a new motor? No

On a seasoned motor for 30 seconds or so to see how it runs? yeah. Done it at junkyards