Cracked Head Symptoms?

[WhiteKnight]

I got a set of gt40 heads cheap awhile back and just recently put them on my car. My question is how to know for sure if they're cracked. There is no oil in the coolant but coolant in the oil, I have no power down low but once it gets going its fine, and overheats occasionally. I've had blown head gaskets before and this seems different. It wasn't doing any of this before the head swap.

 

[Twista]

Wouldn't coolant be leaking on the ground under the car real bad? I know when mine was uneven i had a major coolant leak.

 

[1997gtRioRed]

do a cylinder leakage test

 

[framda]

A cracked head can cause water in the oil, oil in the water, water into the combustion chamber, combustion gas entering into the coolant, etc. etc. These symptoms can be caused by one or a combination of the head, the gasket or a cracked block. You need to magnuflux, zylocoat, hydrostat, pressure test, or visually inspect to find out for sure what is to blame. best guess would be the part you installed when the trouble started. Don't procrastinate, coolant eats up bearings.

 

[Musturd]

If ur manifold ain't tight either all the way you could be getting a leak but like said above . Pressure test ur rad you'll find the leak

 

[WhiteKnight]

Thanks for the help everyone, I drained the oil and I'm going to tear it back apart tomorrow. I'm going to order me some new heads I'm pretty sure the heads are bad I got them for 100 bucks and they were very rusty with a couple broken bolts in them..... I've been reading about FloTek and seen them in 5.0 Magazine budget build. Anyone with experience on them?

 

[ttocs]

my experience on buying used heads was unfortunatly about the same. If your gonna do heads do it right and get a nice new aluminum set and don't look back.

 

[WhiteKnight]

The FloTek's are aluminum and are supposed to be better than gt40x head from what I've read and they are fairly cheap about $700-800 a set

 

[framda]

The pressure testing that I was referring to was on the heads while they are off. Any head shop can bolt on plates, and pump in pressure to the coolant passages and/or the combustion surfaces to see if they hold pressure.