My First Hiccup, finally put this to bed after the 3rd try Options

[76-914]

When we returned from Rt66 '16 I pulled my exhaust system down for a little trimming and noticed water in the left bank muffler! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/WTF.gif) We did drive through a ton of water on that trip. Then when returning from Costco yesterday it acted as if it were starved for fuel when it stumbled during acceleration. The fuel filter was the same one that came on the engine so I ordered another one. When I looked at the filter to check which one I had I noticed the coolant level in the expansion tank/reservoir had dropped. Well, there you are. Head gasket time. Now, I'm wondering if the stumble was due in fact to the head gasket failing? Decisions; should I fix this one which presently has ~ 185K or buy a JDM replacement. After perusing the net I found a few peep's whose JDM experience was less than stellar. Apparently it is a crap shoot as to what you get and the 40-50K avg mileage is (IMG:style_emoticons/default/bs.gif) . So, for about 1K I can pick up another engine and hope I bought a good one or open this one up and hope that is all it needs since it wasn't overheated. What does the the Wasser family think?

EDIT: It's an EZ30D 6cyl

[76-914]

Well, I'm either a lucky SOB or I missed something. I dropped the heads at a new local machinist. He calls me after cleaning the heads & a leak down test and says they really don't need work unless I just wanted to spend some $$$. Two intake valves had 4% leak down and one exhaust valve had 9%. Resurfacing was < .003 and only on the end where there is a longish span.
Then (IMG:style_emoticons/default/WTF.gif) is with the leak? I assumed it would have been head warpage so I went back to the head gasket shown above. In this pic as well as the one above you can see the 3 layers.



And this looks like the place it was leaking. Look on inside of the far left piece where my thumb is. You can see the white residue left where it leaked. But why didn't it leak between the adjacent layer?




When I tried pull that layer apart it resisted so ran my knife blade in and separated that layer until I saw this bead of mastic as shown below. And the place it leaked is missing that sealant. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/idea.gif)



What would cause the gasket sealant to be missing? This is where my thoughts are leading me. If I'm placing that system under a constant pressure greater than what they were intended to see then this might happen. Remember that engine originally had 2 inlets on the radiator for the 2 lines running off each head. That sounds like a system with excellent flow qualities and very, very low head pressure. I use the OEM (1.1 atm /16.16psi) radiator cap and it used to spit several ounces into a catch can before I moved up to a larger dual core radiator. So what did the pressure spike to in those time it did spit water? Or the times that the discharge line was capped off the first 1000 miles? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif) Who (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sheeplove.gif) knows? Given this I'm going to run 1.25 or 1.375 lines beneath the floor pans in hopes of reducing head pressure to an acceptable level. Awaiting gasket set now.

[Gunn1]

Well, I'm either a lucky SOB or I missed something. I dropped the heads at a new local machinist. He calls me after cleaning the heads & a leak down test and says they really don't need work unless I just wanted to spend some $$$. Two intake valves had 4% leak down and one exhaust valve had 9%. Resurfacing was < .003 and only on the end where there is a longish span.
Then (IMG:style_emoticons/default/WTF.gif) is with the leak? I assumed it would have been head warpage so I went back to the head gasket shown above. In this pic as well as the one above you can see the 3 layers.

And this looks like the place it was leaking. Look on inside of the far left piece where my thumb is. You can see the white residue left where it leaked. But why didn't it leak between the adjacent layer?

When I tried pull that layer apart it resisted so ran my knife blade in and separated that layer until I saw this bead of mastic as shown below. And the place it leaked is missing that sealant. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/idea.gif)

What would cause the gasket sealant to be missing? This is where my thoughts are leading me. If I'm placing that system under a constant pressure greater than what they were intended to see then this might happen. Remember that engine originally had 2 inlets on the radiator for the 2 lines running off each head. That sounds like a system with excellent flow qualities and very, very low head pressure. I use the OEM (1.1 atm /16.16psi) radiator cap and it used to spit several ounces into a catch can before I moved up to a larger dual core radiator. So what did the pressure spike to in those time it did spit water? Or the times that the discharge line was capped off the first 1000 miles? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif) Who (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sheeplove.gif) knows? Given this I'm going to run 1.25 or 1.375 lines beneath the floor pans in hopes of reducing head pressure to an acceptable level. Awaiting gasket set now.

If both of the decks/ surfaces are dead nuts flat (head to block mating surfaces) you may have had a defective head gasket in there from the get go. If that way from the fact then Subaru did eff up.