Viper Head gasket question???

Viper Sniper

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Joined
Sep 1, 2004
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156
Location
Northern Illinois
I've got two Vipers and recently had both heads off at the same time and couldn't recall if there was a specific direction or side down when I reinstalled the head gaskets. Well after my last trip 3 weeks ago the sleds have sat in my garage until yesterday when I went to install triple pipes on one of them and a mod head. What I found was a milky coating in all 3 combustion chambers. At first I thought wow I musty have been ingesting coolant in all 3 jugs, maybe I didn't install the gasket correctly or torque the head down to the proper spec. So today I pulled the plugs on my other Viper and all three on that sled are the same way. Wet with a milky coating on them. Is it possible that I got bad gas with a lot of water in it that would cause this or perghaps it's from moisture in the air in my garage and both sleds sitting cold. These are the only possible answers I can think of, besides maybe I installed the head gaskets upside down or my torque wrench isn't accurate. Any help would be appreciated guys, anyone see something like this before?
 

When You Torqued The Head...did You Doi Twice? Torquing It Once Won"t Do It...
 
Torqued once ran it through heat cycle and retorqued. I did pull the cold sleds off the trailer into a warm garage though without fully warming them up, that may be why the milky coating was on piston crowns, plugs and head.
 
I would say that it is very possible that not warming them up fully could cause a white filmy substance on the pistons and heads, because the engine probably didn't get warm enough to burn off any condensation that may have formed from not running it hot enough. It would become milky in color when mixing with the gas and oil in the cylinders. Another thing is that more likely with leaky head gaskets, the coolant system overpressurizes and overheats because some of the compression gases are pushed passed the gaskets into the coolant passages. This has been the case with all my experiences of head gasket failure, and it makes sense. There is a lot more positive compression from the compression stroke than vacuum from the piston traveling downward in the cylinder. It is also easier to push a gas through a small leak than a liquid. Hope this helps somewhat.
 


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