Sorry it's long.

The car ran fine on the way to the track. During the first pass, when I hit 4500 in second gear (first gear was fine) it wouldn't rev any higher so I shifted to third and it did the same thing at 4500 so I let off the gas and the car stalled but fired right back up and I just coasted across the finish and drove back to the pits with no problem. I figured maybe it was just too hot so I let it cool down for a good while. It then started up fine and drove fine to the start line. During the second run, it did the same thing only not as worse, as I was pulling off the strip I noticed the white cloud of death behind the car so I shut it off (it didn't stall on it's own). The coolant temp only got to about 200. The car wouldn't crank over any more after this, probably it's hydrolocked.

Here are my questions.
Could the gasket have been leaking during the two runs, making the car run bad, but not blow steam until the end of the second pass? If not, then what could have caused the engine to not rev above 4500?

What are the chances I damaged something (rods, etc.) from this? Even though it won't crank now it was running even with steam pouring out the pipes so I tend to think it's ok.

I'm pulling the heads off Friday and will take pics.

 

why don't you try a compression test and you'll know if you have head gasket problems or not.

 

hmm good idea. i know though that my compression won't be great because i've been getting a decent amount of blowby. if i pull the PCV valve smoke starts puffing out of the valve covers and even with the PCV in if i hold it at like 2-3k for any length of time it'll start blowing smoke out of the breather. other than that the car ran pretty well and used very little oil

 

the numbers don't really mean much, you do what them all with in 10% or so of each other, and if you have a bad head gasket it'll be a lot lower than 10%

 

well i tore it down yesterday, here's what i found:

cyl 4:


cyl 6:

what can cause them to do this?

also, on cyl 5 or 7 (can't remember which now) the ring was cracked also but it wasn't as bad as the two passenger side ones.

i replaced them but now i'm leaking oil from the back of the intake i think, i'll fix that tomorrow, though.

 

Yikes!!

Did you check the head to make sure it wasnt warped or cracked? What Kind of gaskets are those?