So now I am facing a weird problem. I bought a 05 Shinka 2 months ago. It has a bad starter and burned Clutch. I have solved those two problems by replacing the new starter and Flywheel&Clutch set. It can start and drive fine now. The only problem is the power steering is not working until I drove it out on Monday night.

I was doing a test drive-ish on a long straight road for about 20 minutes. Not a lot of red lines TBH. I connected OBD2 with Ipad and monitored the coolant temp which was all good that under 210F the whole time. I guess it was because the outside temp is low. I was wondering to go back after shooting a final flyby video. The flyby was like 1st gear red-line to 2nd gear not reach redline and then stop. After I hop into the car, I lifted the clutch so fast that the car shut down.

I tried to start the car up and it refused to do so. So the engine wasn't shut down until that happened. Though I know it shouldn't be flooded, I did the deflood procedure 3 times. When I lift the accelerator pedal the car tried to start like the RPM went up to nearly 1K but it failed to start up. I went outside the car and saw it is leaking unknown fluid onto the road (See pic below). The fluid smells like Chlorine or in other words, like what you smell after using the Rust dissolver on metals.




My friend told me that coolant could turn acidic after time so the first thing comes out of my mind was the coolant got boiled. I checked the coolant tank. The Tank cap is tight and the coolant inside wasn't decreased.

I tried to find the source of the leaking. It seems that the fluid is dropped from the transmission but it is not the source. It turns out that the leak point should be near the front of the engine and the fluid just moved down along the transmission and dropped there. I pushed the car moving forward and took the pic that shows a small pool of fluid dropped under the engine bay area. I popped the hood and saw splashed fluid marks everywhere with the acidic (Chlorine) smell. I know the leak is from the front of the engine based on the splashed marks on the battery and engine cover (See Pic). Since I tried deflood several times the battery is dying. I decide to go home and call a tow truck tomorrow morning.



So I towed the car back to the garage first thing the next morning. Since I pushed the car forward last night, I was wondering if there are any new fluid marks on the road to determine if the fluid kept leaking during the night. And I found nothing after the car tow away, WEIRD. I have courses in the morning so the car just sits there and I planned to work on it in the afternoon. Meanwhile, I did some research and I found out that there was no 2-stroke oil inside the Sohn adapter. Yeah, I don't even know that Sohn Tank is before this whole thing! However, I am sure that there was still some in the tank before I drive out last night.

I filled up the Sohn Tank and premixed some in the fuel tank. I charged the battery during the day while I tried to find the leaking source. Since it stopped leaking I found nothing.

HERE comes the interesting thing.

I filled up the Sohn tank and charged the battery. Did 3 or 4 times of deflood. Then guess what, it started up!! I tried to find any leaks after it started up and Nothing leaked onto the ground. No smoking inside the engine bay, WEIRD! I drove out to the car meet and it runs fine. The coolant temp kept normal on the OBD2 monitor as well.

So the car starts and runs fine now. HOWEVER, I still don't know where the leaks from. Does anyone have any ideas?

 

The unknown fluid is probably condensation from the A/C. The drain spout for that is near the trans. You're not the first to be surprised by this mystery fluid.

For the oil leak, spray up into the cover (and all over front of the engine?) tells me front mail seal. It only really manifest when you rev the car out. It's a huge PITA to change so unless you have the motor out for other reasons it might not be worth the hassle.

As for not restarting, you might have fuel pump overheating issues. No guarantees but your gas was at 1/4 or lower it can happen with the older pumps. Pretty good reason to plan for replacement.

 

Thanks, Loki. The front of the engine is covered with black oil stuff when I bought it, which seems to confirm your point about the Front Main Seal needing to be replaced. However when I try to identify those splashed fluids yesterday. It doesn't oil-ish and smells acidic. So I suspect there was something other than engine oil splashed out that night. Do you have any clue?

 

When that mystery fluid evaporated did it leave a stain?
Coolant is green, oily fluids linger a long time. If it evaporated without a stain, it was water from the air conditioner as I said above.

 

No the Fluid didn't evaporated. The stain you see in engine cover pic was took the very next day after fluid came out. So I would say it is not from AC.

Is it normal that the front of engine is that messy like I shown in the pic? I have watched a lot of YouTube video and their engine bay are much cleaner.

 

No the front of your engine is a mess because of the front main seal leak. It mists oil everywhere at high rpm.

Mine isn't quite as bad, but it's not clean and it gets a lot worse every track day.

There aren't really any clear fluids in the car. And the ac drain spout is pretty much where you have the leak, so maybe it was a cold humid day (night?) or something and the water didn't evaporate? Did you use your a/c the day before?

 

Wow that engine bay. The way you parked and the orientation of the engine/transmission appears to be the AC condensate drain to me. If you think it is coolant, check the expansion tank overflow hose. In stock form it dumps onto the power steering rack connections unless the previous owner removed it.