identifying a potential blown head gasket?

ok, I attended my first autoX today (well, autoX coaching type class, but close enough, the Escort got put through its paces through some cones) and on my third run through a half-course (roughly a 20-30 second affair, as the full course was 40 seconds or so for the slower drivers), as I was powering out of a right-left-right slalom onto the finish straight, my car produced a plume of smoke that rivaled a blown Formula 1 engine, but ran perfectly fine. I checked the oil level, and it was about an inch above the hatch marks on the dipstick, indicating a drastically over-filled system. the rest of the day, same story, it would smoke when I got on the gas hard, and a little bit when I was just babying the car to get to the auto-parts store. well, I got there, got a full oil change done, drove it home, and no smoke as far as I could tell. I checked the antifreeze level as per the suggestion of a family friend, and while the level was ok, the antifreeze was quite literally the same basic color as root beer, just without the fizz. in talking with the family friend, he suggested that it could be a less-toxic antifreeze (propylene glycol I think he said it was) that was red to begin with, but the owners manual calls for either normal green antifreeze, or yellow antifreeze (although that I have never run across before). like I said, with the engine still a bit hot, the antifreeze level was between the full hot and full cold marks on the overflow tank, and after an oil change it did not smoke. also, at no point in the day did my engine temperature gauge indicate an overheating engine, it always stayed right in the center of hot and cold. this is on a 2002 Ford Escort ZX-2 with the 2.0L DOHC Zetec engine and an automatic trans, and it is quite literally as stock as stock can get, apart from GRM license plate frames, a GRM sticker on the rear bumper, and a parking pass sticker for my high school. hell, still rolling on the tires it left the factory with, even. the only ill effect I eventually noticed was it was starting to feel a very little bit down on power, but I'm putting that down to oil fouling the plugs which should burn off now that I've got the proper amount of oil in the engine.

is it likely that I blew a head gasket? being that this is my daily driver, I don't want to risk blowing up a very low-mileage engine if I do have a blown head gasket. anyone have any input?

Does the exhaust or oil have a coolant smell to them?

Did you check the oil that was removed from your car, and if so what did it look like?

what kind of smoke whas it blowing? white, blue, black?

new oil smells like, well, oil, exhaust didn't have a coolant smell to it from what I could tell. didn't get a chance to look at my old oil, however, other than what came off of the dipstick when I checked it at the track, which was rather brown. the coolant, for some reason, didn't smell quite as sickly sweet as I expected it to, however. I dipped your run of the mill napkin in the overflow tank just enough to get some coolant in it, and it smelled a little bit different than I expected. then I smelled the oil off the dipstick and it smelled like Valvoline Synthetic 5W20, which is what the shop put in it this afternoon

EDIT: and it was blowing lots of white smoke at first, and then the amount of smoke went down but it never stopped smoking until after I got the oil changed. also, the smoke was never anything except white

sounds like a headgasket. try a block test where you put test liquid into a tube and put the tube on the top of the radiator where the cap would go. if the liquid starts to turn yellow, you have hydrocarbons getting into the cooling system. if you buy the tester it will have all the directions. the problwm is that it could also indicate a leak in the head or a pinhole leak in the cylinder. based on the circumstances you described, i would lean towards a headgasket, but remember im no journeyman technician, im still a student

well, I'll see if I can run across one of these testing kits tomorrow and try it. I'm hoping that I get no yellow, though

im pretty sure you will, but if it turns fast, then that means gasket which is not nearly as bad as a leak elsewhere.

im pretty sure you will, but if it turns fast, then that means gasket which is not nearly as bad as a leak elsewhere.

you mean if it's just a really sudden thing? the car showed no signs of anything, then powering out of a right-hand turn at the end of a slalom, WHOOSH as I managed to create a massive plume of smoke that covered my half of the course, but no symptoms that I could feel just driving the car around (didn't feel sluggish or make any adverse noises or anything)

I'm going' with BHG. Do a compression test on the motor hot and cold. Try the test kit.

Check the PCV system. If it is not drawing a vacuum at the oil filler, there could be a build up of crankcase pressure. Are you sure it is the engine ? At Summit Point , I started smoking a lot. Turns out the spider gear shaft wore a hole in the differential housing and oil was going on the exhaust..

I'm sure it's the engine, as it only smoked when on the power hard. it wasn't a continuous stream of smoke, and driving the car real nice and slow and easy (at least as far as the throttle is concerned), while not terribly fun, does not produce any smoke whatsoever

Sounds like you need to perform a leak down test..

My vote is the PCV system, especially if this was a 1.9L. With the location of the PCV breather, cornering, and the oil being overfilled, it's not unlikely the engine injested some oil. A little oil will make lots of smoke.

It is not a 1.9, it is a 2.0 DOHC. The PCV systems are similar however. Just something to check. Zetecs do blow head gaskets A compression or leak down test should tell. As for the PCV, it it is not drawing a vacuum it is possible for oil to load up in the breather on the valve cover and since there is a tube connecting it to the air filter, then the oil would be drawn into the intake.

would a PCV problem cause oil in the coolant and very likely coolant in the oil, however?

no