Content creator Wiktor Ivanovko stitches a shocking video of a burning car driving down the street. Ivanovko claims the flaming car overheated due to the Northstar V-8’s head gasket failing.
The Facebook post went viral, generating 370,200 views as of this writing.
What Cars Had the Northstar V-8 Engine?
In the post, Ivanovko speculates that the cause of the engine fire was due to the head gasket failure in a vehicle with a Northstar V-8 engine.
“This is what happens when a Northstar V-8 engine head gasket fails. It overheats slightly,” Ivanovko says. “Slightly” is a sarcastic understatement, as the car was blazing down the road on fire. The question is, are these engines still in production, and which cars had the Northstar V-8?
The Northstar V-8 engine’s production began in 1993. It remained in production until 2011, according to CarBuzz. The Northstar V-8 engine was considered General Motors’ most complex engine at the time, featuring double overhead camshafts, four valves per cylinder, an aluminum engine block, and aluminum cylinder heads. During production, this V-8 engine was used for Cadillac, Pontiac, and Buick models, but mostly for Cadillac.
The Cadillac models that featured the V-8 in the debut were the Seville, Eldorado, and Allante. The Northstar V-8 immediately exhibited world-class luxury car performance refinement that American automakers had lacked, Autoweb reports.
While the buzz was real and exciting during the 90s, there was a slight issue that turned into a major one involving the head bolts.
What Caused the Head Gasket Failures?
The Truth About Cars reports that the head gasket failures were primarily due to issues with the head bolts and their ability to maintain clamping force under heat. The head bolts were threaded too finely, leading to stretching and loss of tension over time under heat cycling and stress.
This so-called “stretching” of the head bolts would cause them to strip the metal off the block as the threads pulled away. This resulted in a loss of cylinder pressure. When this happened, the coolant entered the cylinders, exhaust, and eventually engine oil, which led to overheating and cooking the head gasket.
While issues within the cylinders or exhaust were not always visible, a ruined head gasket led to milkshake-like brownish oil under the engine’s oil filler cap.
The issues were then known generally as a head gasket failure, or the “Northstar Condition.”
So, when coolant is on the loose and ends up in the oil, it’s best to avoid driving entirely.
What Are Signs of the Northstar Head Gasket Failure?
Northstar Performance reports these are the most common signs of head gasket failure on a Northstar engine:
- Overheating.
- High pressure build-up in the coolant surge (fill) tank that remains when the engine cools off.
- White smoke from the exhaust.
- Coolant smell from the exhaust.
- Engine temperature spikes during acceleration or climbing steep grades.
- Coolant in the oil, which makes oil milky white or light brown.
- Sudden severe oil leak coming from rear main seal area.
A few tests can be done to determine how things are looking. First, a combustion leak test kit can be picked up from your local auto shop. This will check for exhaust gasses being present in the cooling system.
Another test that can be done is a quick acceleration run on the highway. Before doing this, be sure there is enough coolant. This test entails driving the car up to 70 miles per hour and dropping the speed to monitor coolant temperature. When doing this, the coolant should never go past the ⅝ mark or go over 240 degrees Fahrenheit. If the temperature keeps climbing up, pull over immediately to let the car cool down.
The last thing you want to do is let the engine overheat and catch fire like the Ghost Rider in the viral post.
Many commenters couldn’t believe their eyes and chimed in with some humor.
“He’s on his way to O’reilly’s Auto,” one Facebook commenter wrote.
“There’s a few things that would make a man keep driving in that condition. I’ll leave the list to your imagination,” another said.
“I thought it was Ghost Rider,” a third joked.
Motor1 has contacted Wiktor Ivanovko via Facebook direct message. This story will be updated should he respond.