okay, so i was being dumb first off.. i just randomly thought of doing a burn out, i was thinking a small one no harm except tires..
so i saw my first on and only one tire spun, so i tried a very small one next to see if i could get both tires to kick. well no one that one either. but on my very short drive home my coolant light came on. i was 2 blocks away so i drove very slow home, barely on the gas. pulled into the garage and popped the hood. coolant all over the top of the engine.
looked and i did not see any hoses broken, so my only thought is taht the cap was where it sprayed out.

but why?? i always make sure its tight when i look at the engine, which was like 2 weeks ago to check how my oil was. could it have been the car was not very warm when i did them?? i don't want to harm the engine. and wow i tell you my car heated up fast when the coolant was done spitting out. like it was at normal range in less than 2 min.

also thinking this should be in the general forum.. could yall move it.. or is it fine here.

 

You may still want to have it pressure tested. Clean it all up, replace the lost coolant, make sure the cap it on tight. If you don't notice anything out of the ordinary next time you drive it I would think your fine. A cap not being on tight is sure to get coolant everywhere. This past summer I broke one of the plastic side tanks, I only noticed coolant under the car after a drive, didn't lose much. Replaced it with an alum. piece.

 

ouch

 

i will get it pressure tested, but i still don't see why it just suddenly did it..
it makes me confused

 

Do you have the intake w/ the plastic coolant cross-over?

 

did not check that.. well if it is the intake, i have an pi one with aluminum that i can put on

i did not look at that because it was all over the engine, but not the front of the car. and only on the drivers side, my first thought was cap loose. but in the morning i can check it.. its a good thing i am driving my bro's car so the stang can sit if needed.

its a stock 97 gt so my guess would be plastic cross over.
by the way how would it spray if the cross over cracked?? i would think all over the engine, not just on driver side with a rearward trajectory.

 

okay more confusion to me.
repopped the hood and looked.. the back of the power steering was wet, but only a few drops on the front or top of cover closes to the radiator, there was coolant on the high power fuse box, but only on the front half top. some spray on the battery, on the hood cover you could see a big spot about mid engine, then a line stretching over to the pass side, the alt had some coolant on it on the driver side. and there were a couple spots around the injectors that still had a little cover coolant on then. it was to dark in my garage to go any further back to see, so tomorrow i will pull it into the sun (if we have some) and look again with better lighting. does that help yall any?

 

mystery solved...

started car to make sure coolant level was good, and there i saw it, thermostat housing gasket is blown. coolant it just running out of it..

well i know what it is now..

 

Regardless if the intake cracked or not, it is only a matter of time before the plastic one cracks. Slap on one w/ an Aluminum cross-over. However, you can't use a PI manifold w/o adaptor plates unless you want some insane port mismatching. However, they do make NPI manifolds w/ the Aluminum cross-over.

 

good job, I wouldn't have thought about the thermostat housing gasket.

 

well working on our race cars enough it has taught me to look everywhere, so when i started the car, i looked briefly and saw the coolant and the goose neck, so i looked closer at the hose and it was not lose, so i looked again and saw it was coming from below the goose neck and the t-stat gasket..

so since i will be there anyways, i want to change out the t-stat for a new one, should i get something like a 160degree or just stock??

 

No colder than 180 for the street.

 

Like he said 180* is fine any lower and it won't come out of closed loop mode and will keep trying to warm the car up by running rich.

 

okay Thanks

 

in ALL my years, I've never-ever seen a Modular thermostat O-ring blow, your problem is the intake mainfold, there common/prone to crack in a seem behind the alternator but also at a seem in the lower thermostat housing...so dont waste your time replacing an O-ring or thermostat, you need to replace the intake mainfold...

 

circled in red is where its leaking from... thats why i think its the gasket or o-ring...

its a cell phone pic my camera broke