Originally Posted by burke23

Well my lemon continues to suprise me. I fixed the cel by clipping the resistors in the ECU and now it idles great and the cel is gone. I found the source of the starting problems (some security card that slides in under the dash wasn't making contact so I jiggled it and boom the car fires up great, who thinks up this hokey security sh*t).

Now for the bad. I verified that the radiator, water pump, thermostat, fan are ok but now I think I may have a bad head gasket. It is cold out so I cannot be sure but the exhaust seems to smoke more than would be warranted by just cold air alone (it would also explain the lack of coolant in the thing when I got it home).

Is there any other easy way to tell if you have a head gasket problem other than ripping into it?