So, had a younger Arrive and Drive (A&D) to whom I gave incomplete instructions as to how to drive the car (race the car, not the engine). After a couple of stints in which he exhibited little mechanical sympathy (and another driver also brought it back puking up a milkshake), I took it out to see what had changed since my mid-day stint.
It was throwing water all over the windshield! Still started fine. In my experience, if the head gasket is blown, it won't start easily.
"Fine," says I. And we pulled the head. After careful inspection of the head gasket, I finally found two small flaws in the red ring goop. From the oil supply head bolt hole to the water jacket holes. One of my teammates noticed that these small flaws corresponded with flaws in the block. It was cracked between both coolant holes next to the oil supply for the head.
Over the next two hours, at least 20 gearheads offered possible solutions and rehashed the arguments that we had 20 minutes ago. In the end, cleaned everything up and J-B welded the stud into the hole in hopes it would minimize the leakage. I figure the block is mostly junk at this point.
But Sunday, after finally buttoning everything back together and eventually getting the wiring hooked back up, injection timed (ish, .80mm on our measurements seems a little off the power curve), and injection bled (tow it around the paddock until it remembers how to run), it got back on track and finished the race.
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