I’ve noticed my 05 R53 has been slightly down in power and I have a vibration at high rpm. I checked my oil today and was down a quart with only a 1000 miles since I changed it. Filled that up and checked the coolant level and that’s fine, but when i pulled it in the garage I can smell coolant and found some splatter under the engine mount and on the bolt behind the dipstick. So head gasket going?

 

Do a leak down and compression test....that will tell you want's going on. You can get a leak down tester from Harbor Freight for like $25... I think the compression tester is about the same.

Also, you can buy an antifreeze test kit that will tell you if you have combustion gasses in your coolant (head gasket leak).


Do some testing and troubleshooting before you start throwing money at the car for repairs that might not be needed.

 

Thanks! I think I might have found it. After further inspection it looks to be coming from the top radiator hose and blowing back into those areas. Then I thought about the performance and a couple days before I had to fill up with 90 octane instead of the 93 that I always get. This car has lots of mods on it including a custom tune and noticed right when I’d get into the boost I’d head a slight detonation and would assume the ECU would compensate by backing off the timing thus loosing performance. Last night I filled back up with 93 but haven’t had a chance to drive it long enough. And looking around for the coolant issue I noticed I had oil running down from the crank and dripping g off the pan so I pulled the balancer (ATI) and could spin the crank seal with a screwdriver lol. So I think that’s where my oil drop went as well.