Hi all! I completed a motor swap a while ago and have the car sitting my garage while I let it idle a bit and try to get some basic prom tuning done so its driveable. The problem is that it keeps leaking coolant into the oil. At first I thought it was just the intake manifold gasket, so I pulled it and replaced the gasket.

Well I went to check the oil this weekend and again its got coolant in it. I pulled the intake again and did a more careful inspection of the gasket around the water holes and found that everything seemed pretty well sealed.

From my research this means that it is likely a head gasket or something stupid that I forgot to do or overlooked. I used thread sealer on all the head bolts when I put the heads on, so I don't think coolant is getting in from there. I used a set of steel shim gaskets (summit part mrg-1130) which I think is what the problem is.

Am I way off base here thinking its the head gasket? Something else I forgot to do?

 

Cracked block. Often occurs in the lifter valley.

 

I would suspect a head gasket more than a cracked block, but its possible. A good place to start would be with a compression test. Although this wont be a definate answer, it may show signs of other problems with the headgaskets and give you a better reason to just tear it down.

 

I hope the block isn't cracked that would really suck. I don't have a compression gauge and the intake is already off. I think I'll just keep tearing it down and replace the shims with a set of composite gaskets. Thanks guys.