I just swaped in a "good" 350 out of a 1990 chevy truck in to my 87 ta. When it started lots and i mean lots of water started to spray out of the passenger header. Is it a head gasket? or something else.

 

maybe it's not a "good" motor
could be collected moisture from sitting in the weather at the yard.

 

no its not just moisture its drained the radiator twice now very quickly and it wasn't a yard motor it came out a runing truck in to a crate then to my house

 

does it bubble through the overflow when the rad cap is on
My old blazer had a blown head gasket and it ate coolant but was a diesel so white smoke wasnt as obvious

 

Well, you've got a few choices...

RH head gasket blown....

Or cracked head??? Usually buckets of water get in that way from around the valves. Normally if a head gasket blows between the cylinder and water jacket the cooling system gets pressurized and blows the upper hose off or else blows a hole in the radiator.

One last question? How does the oil look? The reason I ask is just in case you have installed your intake manifold recently. If you goofed up a gasket by accident (it's easy to do with RTV) you could be sucking the water straight into the intake ports of the head. If you're doing that, you may have a little water also getting into the oil or else you may be using a lot of oil as well.

I would check your freshly installed intake first.

Good luck!

 

well were pretty sure it is a problem with the intake it was switched to an edelbrock intake but a pre 86 style and we dont think it got the seal it needed after the middle holes were drilled out and i used a pre 86 gasket so a new intake is on the way and gasket so i hope it works my auto teacher at school thinks its the intake to since i never touched the heads except to change springs till then will work on the exhaust and electrical

 

oh and the oil looks like a like chocolate milk very light chocolate milk

 

Welcome to the blown head gasket club! You will get your hat and t-shirt any day now and complimentary keys to the Yugo!

I just blew the head gasket in my Jeep. After filling the radiator with water and running for 2 minutes it was bone dry. It was magic I tell you, making that much water "disappear". Imagine my glee as I found the water exiting out the back.

 

that could be just a bad intake gasket. oil and antifreeze can still mix w/ bad intake sealing. especially if it was a "rigged" non-vortec intake to a vortec setup.

 

ok well the thing was that it was a combinaton of a bad intake gasket and i think bad intake because when i changed the angle of the four middle holes to accomadate the change in angle of the heads i dont think it was able to torque down properly so with the combinaton of the right gasket and a new intake for the proper year the water out the is exhaust is gone

im very glad it wasnt the head gasket all thought the club sounded fun

 

Excellent!

I love it when a plan comes together!

Don't forget to share your lessons learned with others as well. Have fun with your car!

 

Well good, you don't want to be part of the Blown Head Gasket club anyway. The membership fees suck.