I need help...I noticed while installing my bodykit that (oil?) is leaking from the valve caover on to the heat shield for the headers. I've also noticed a severe dropoff in performance at high RPM's (around 6300 or so) My dad says i might have a bad head gasket, is there any place where i can buy performance headgasketts or what is the problem? Is it fatal? (also i always seem to always be short on oil)

Yea Yea! hey do a compression check to find out about head gaskets theres a write up on how to do it in the mods section, it's cheap and inexpensive so u can do that yourself, on the valve cover issue that's an easy fix too, u can get a replacement gasket at the auto supply house. Lastly you could have a valve seal problem, our cars are notorious for bad valve seals which will cause light smoking and a loss in power, pull your spark plugs, if u find oil in one of the cylinders, it the valve seals, like I said if it's the head gaskets u probably would find coolant in your oil, so check it all out thats a dead giveaway-Good luck Homie :)

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thanks for the advice but i kinda wanted to know if it was a seal problem (the car doesnt smoke) or if the head gasket might be damaged, i'm thinkin it might be a seal problem but why does my performance shutdown at 6k rpm? i had the spark plugs replaced when i first got the car about three months ago, ang i dont know the difference between coolant and oil so..................oh and do they make performance gasketts or am is it not worth getting one?
I am engine illeterate so i am sorry in advance thanks for your help tytan fox

Your performance cuts out at aroung 6400 rpm because our cars have an electronic rev limiter. I believe the limiter cuts of spark, or gas, so that you don't blow your engine.

As for the leakage, it is probably a headgasket and valve cover. Mine both were leaking and fit the description that you gave.

the rev limiter kicks in at 7500, but thanks for you help ill have to go to satan and find the problem

You probably have a valve cover leak, and thats it. I have it. I dont think its fatal as long as you dont run out of oil, right?

I have oil in 2 spark plug holes too. And it seaping out the sides of the valve cover. I took off the valve cover and plastered it with that valve cover-maker stuff. I dont know where I went wrong, but it leaks worse now. Hrmmmm..... I did a good job too. Either way, got the car at 90,000 miles and it had the problem. Now im at 155,000, just 2 years later maybe, and the problem is the same. Nothing bad has happened, except the problem is still there. Id love it to be fixed, I bet it would be good for the car too, but so far not fatal. So dont stress. Get it fixed, but dont stress.

im gonna get a compression test at autozone tommorow just to make sure everything is ok. Umm.... if you get the leak fixed im sure your car will go faster, i mean i've seen pics of your car and its pretty decent so you may want to get it looked at too, or just keep savin up for the BOV ;)

It sounds like it's the valve cover gasket that's causing the leakage.

As far as the performance drop off - that sounds about right to me. With stock cams the performance would drop off severely at just about 6500 RPM for me. Definately check your compression though - that's a good idea.

If you don't see oil in your coolant or coolant in your oil, then your headgasket is probalby fine. But just cause you asked, you can run a thinner head gasket to get a little more power. The thinnest head gaskets I know of are .022 inches thick and ours are either .040 or .046 inches thick. Using a .022 inch head gasket would raise your compression by about a half a point - so you'de have somewhere around a 10:1 or 10.1:1 compression ratio. That would increase your overall power output by about 2% through the whole RPM range. In other words 140HP peak would become 143HP peak.


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