WOW I have not been on here in awhile, prolly since the end of August when I got married. Now I am broke as a joke. ;> At least this month is my LAST car payment and it is mine.


I had almost made it to work when I noticed that I could no longer accelerate.

I pressed the gas down and the RPMs just didn't budge. I coasted to a stop and the car still idled. It started having sharp studders from like 600-1500 RPMS up and down on the tach. I now noticed white smoke everywhere.
It was foggy here today, so I dunno how long it was going on. I was defenately leaking fluid behind me and has a nice pool of fluid under my car. The sun had not come up yet and I could not see much.

I had it towed to my friend's dad's shop. I do not know for sure yet what the issue is.


It is sometimes more economical to swap an engine rather than change the head gasket, but I will confirm the issue first.

Any advice appreciated.
I will post an update once I know more.

Yeah, sounds like a head-gasket issue. If your motor is a stocker, then doing an engine swap would be cheaper and easier.

This is technically my second motor. :>
We swapped it at 120k on my odometer around March/April 2005. My odometer just passed 130k.

I have been limping with a vac leak and an oil leak (possibly the turbo?). BUt it has been drivable.


I am really tempted to remove this turbo after this. I've been running this blind except the PRofec E-01 boost gauge. So ya that is my fault....


If I were to just temporarily remove the turbo to have it rebuilt later or whatever, can I go NA without ripping everything out?

Let me know what turbo you are running if you chose to go back NA, I'm in the market for one.

OK no more vultures! hehe

I would rather have encouragement to keep it. :>
I just need to understand the issues that may arise having a booted car.... :>

So....... It was just a busted heater hose! I am so happy.


Is our ECU smart enough to not allow me to accelerate once all the coolant was gone? The temp gauge was not reading high? Possibly once all the coolant is gone, the temp sensor has no coolant to measure its temp??

No, it will not shut the car off. The temp sensor should have picked up the increase in temp, but they are really just a 3 position switch... cold, normal, and oh chit! I'd get a water temp gauge if you really want to keep an eye on it.

Sound like your head gasket is gone. I think that would not be a bad idea to have a second engine. For practical reason, I prefer to work on an engine when it's not on the car, on a bench, it is much easier to work with. That would look nice to put a freashly re-built, re-paint engine. VQ are easy to find and are quite cheap, about 400$ average for a 3.0L.

Read the rest of the thread...

Anyways if there was no coolant left then that's why the coolant temp gauge didn't read high... there was no coolant to take the temparature of!

Lol, I didn't saw that one...it's all good then. But still 2 motors when you are boosted is not a bad idea.

When the radiator busted on my 95 240, and it went empty on coolant the car shut itself off and wouldnt crank. Replacement radiator, and filled with coolant and its been fine since.