"Cooked" engine?(RB20DE NEO)

[Kapr]

Hi.
As of now i dont what happened(update comming soon)...but i just dont WTF was happened.
Head and top of the engine was rebuild last year...it ran great. I ran like 5k with no problems and car ran good when you take to consideration that is kinda slow have 216k km and is old.
But it ran.
Yesterday i took it to a trip and when i was near home i started to smell like burned plastic...i thought it is from outside. But when i stopped at the lights the smoke starts pour from under the car(engine)
So i stopped the car and take a look. My hood do not want to open so i try to look everywhere i could. I stall the engine and after like 10-15 min smoke was gone.
I saw nothing burned nothing smell ...nothing. So maybe some plastic melt or something "plasticy" drop on exhaust. I started up the car and it went good...nothing. No smoke no smell and car ran great. 
I was like 20 min from home so i ride.
But after like 10 min i started to smell the plastic again...and of course on the lights there was the smoke again.
Iam not going to push it but i need to stop elsewhere and. Car still runs normally so i ride like 2-3 min to park the car and call the "angels".

BUT then suddenly car make some wierd noise(i was low on gear and it sounded like the car was not happy on low gear and low rpm)...but then again the same noise and car just stalled.
I drifted to side of the road. Car (engine) was smoking.

I manage to finally open the hood.

Now what i found. There was nothing burned. Smoke came 100% from the engine. Car did not wanted to start (cranked 1 times...sounds bad) so i leave it. 
The radiator was cold...(like how?) there was no leakage as far i could se. Oil was at the top and do not look bad(was changes like 800km ago).
The back of the car(more near the exhaust side) was covered with oil/fuel? Something oily. But smoke or any type of smoke was really came out of the engine only...no smoke from exhaust(i looked at mirror constatly)

I know "magic ball" but WTF should have happened? Car was at the mechanics like month ago and he checked all fluids and any "service" things and all was good...and car was good runned normally until this happened.
 

[GTSBoy]

Blown HG.

[Duncan]

Is there any coolant in the radiator?

[Kapr]

@GTSBoy I "IF"...why? The gasket was brand new. Any reason for that? I do not race the car or otherwise abuse it. The whole "trip" the car has seen red(7k rpm) like 10 times max. I know that temperature gauge is not 100% accurate but it was at the center whole time(it should work...it goes down when the car is cold) so idk 😕
 

@Duncanidk i do not check at the time(my mechanic will) but i kinda dont think so...or at least not "much" cuz when the car stall on itsefl and i manage to open the hood the radiator was cold as no "hot" water was even there 😕 after like 10-15 min the radiator was starting to get warm/hot.
I have done brake swap from GTT so i checked everytime i ride for spillage underneath the car...and no drop. Even my mechanic looked last time(like 14 day ago) and car was bone dry ...no leakage or anything...

So i think something goes horrible wrong...again 😕 I know it is old car and things can go bad but i really dont know why this was happened.

 

[Duncan]

Understood, but unfortunately a key reason for a cold radiator is that there is no coolant in it, it will just be at ambient air temp then....

It is way hard to guess without seeing the car, but coolant can look like smoke and no coolant feels like cold coolant

[GTSBoy]

49 minutes ago, Kapr said:

"IF"...why? The gasket was brand new. Any reason for that?

Usually from an installation error.

[joshuaho96]

4 hours ago, Kapr said:

Hi.
As of now i dont what happened(update comming soon)...but i just dont WTF was happened.
Head and top of the engine was rebuild last year...it ran great. I ran like 5k with no problems and car ran good when you take to consideration that is kinda slow have 216k km and is old.
But it ran.
Yesterday i took it to a trip and when i was near home i started to smell like burned plastic...i thought it is from outside. But when i stopped at the lights the smoke starts pour from under the car(engine)
So i stopped the car and take a look. My hood do not want to open so i try to look everywhere i could. I stall the engine and after like 10-15 min smoke was gone.
I saw nothing burned nothing smell ...nothing. So maybe some plastic melt or something "plasticy" drop on exhaust. I started up the car and it went good...nothing. No smoke no smell and car ran great. 
I was like 20 min from home so i ride.
But after like 10 min i started to smell the plastic again...and of course on the lights there was the smoke again.
Iam not going to push it but i need to stop elsewhere and. Car still runs normally so i ride like 2-3 min to park the car and call the "angels".

BUT then suddenly car make some wierd noise(i was low on gear and it sounded like the car was not happy on low gear and low rpm)...but then again the same noise and car just stalled.
I drifted to side of the road. Car (engine) was smoking.

I manage to finally open the hood.

Now what i found. There was nothing burned. Smoke came 100% from the engine. Car did not wanted to start (cranked 1 times...sounds bad) so i leave it. 
The radiator was cold...(like how?) there was no leakage as far i could se. Oil was at the top and do not look bad(was changes like 800km ago).
The back of the car(more near the exhaust side) was covered with oil/fuel? Something oily. But smoke or any type of smoke was really came out of the engine only...no smoke from exhaust(i looked at mirror constatly)

I know "magic ball" but WTF should have happened? Car was at the mechanics like month ago and he checked all fluids and any "service" things and all was good...and car was good runned normally until this happened.
 

Most engine rebuilds are not that comprehensive purely for cost and time reasons. Also when it isn’t your engine you really don’t care that much if it’s messed up or not. Hence why everyone says rebuilds “let the Nissan magic out”.

The fact that your radiator is cold suggests you had a major cooling system failure. Within 5-10 minutes of driving it should’ve been too hot to touch with your bare hands. Coolant temp at the top of the radiator is going to be like 80C. Blocked thermostat or similar blockage in the system, water pump failure, etc can all cause these kinds of symptoms. 

[Kapr]

@DuncanI think so too...but dont why suddenly i start to loose coolant...but i guess that it is how things go bad.
The smoke was only from the engine...no smoke from exhaust. And when i checked the oil it was fine(no milky just regular colored oil)
Yeah i will see this week what went wrong.
 

@GTSBoyYou think it could like "self destroy" after a year? The gasket was done like year ago and i drove the car couple of k km. But i dont know how these things "work" and if it can go bad like right away or just like this...

@joshuaho96I know but do not have a choice. Not many people here gonna work on that car/engine (as far as i know i am the only with this type of engine). Most of them(even that still no many) have GTT and have no time or they want like fortune just for a small things.

Yeah i start to think so too...i know i touch the radiator many times before to check and it was HOT to touch..no it was only little warm on left and in the middle where the cap is...completely cold.
The "block" thing should have been the problem..or the pump but it is/was new...done with the belts and everything around last year.

I will let you know but i think too that something happened with cooling system.
But thanks for the tips guys 🙂 

[WMDC35]

Usually it happens again as the problem that caused it originally wasn't sorted properly, better off to put an import motor in than repair it.

The gauge won't show it's hot with no coolant because the temp sensor is dry, if you suspect it's losing coolant in the future try the heater on hot as they usually lose water out of the heater core early on so if doesn't blow hot it's losing water.

[Kapr]

Happy new update(since last tuesday)
It was ONLY the broken hose from the heater core. Heater core was leaking so we took it out like month ago and just "connect" the hose until the new come out.
Being the 25 year old Japanese rubber...the hose do not like the new position and being "too" close to the exhaust(even with heat shield) and just broke.
So no HG no nothing.
My mechanic even told me(i did not know that) that Skylines have overheat protection when the engine starting to overheat they just cut the fuel...and that is what happened. Next day when the car was cold it started like new.

So at least something was not completely wrong 🙂 

[Duncan]

great news

and yes, I had a 33 gtst with a standard computer and a pinhole leak in a hose; I didn\'t notice the overheat but it shut down before any damage was done

[GTSBoy]

Yes, but the coolant has to still be touching the CTS, otherwise it reads cold and the ECU will happily let the engine burn itself to death.