Hope I don't have cracked heads.

I Think it will be okay but man this sucks lol. Too poor to replace all my dying sensors:



I know I also have a cracked radiator, cracked headers as well. interior is a wreck as my plans to do yet another interior swap have been stalled, and moving literally 5 times in the past year didn't help either.

Buuut I really got worried about it when I got stuck in like 15 inches in the snow, couldn't do much about it because the idle was all screwed up from the dead MAF and ive never had the luxury of traction control, or ABS in either of my riv's, so my right foot is mt abs and traction control, and with the screwed up idle, I couldn't get any traction in the snow, while the engine was overheating in a really shiesty neghborhood I did not want my car sketchily stuck at.

Eventually got the car out from like 8 college kids helping me and pushing it somewhere safe, but the engine overheated bad.

I should have known something was up, and shouldn't have dared the snow like an idiot because I knew about a couple of bad sensors, and on the highway the temps were 205, usually they are like 165-180 depending while cruising even with my 205 tstat. no idea if thats supposed to happen but it's my experience.

So the question is with the needle at 280 coolant temps for like a couple mins before giving up should I worry about cracked heads or blown head gasket    or should I assume it's that the radiator got worse on the bad snow in the highway from chunks flying at me from road tractors that wouldn't stay out of the middle of the road and wouldnt let me pass?

I saw no water in my oil and I Can't tell if oil is in the coolant tank because yes the tank is that dirty and I got it like that. hindsight is 20/20 to have flushed the coolant system and washed out the tank I know, but life has other problems.

I'm debating whether the problem got worse in the highway or if it blew something bad while it was stuck. and I would have been fine were not for the bad idle and overheating because the limited slip diff literally rotated the whole car as if a giant pin was stuck in the middle and someone pushed a corner on it in ice because of the bad idle and it kept getting stuck worse and worse.

Also debating whether or not to rip out the radiator from my useless 4g37 model '93 eclipse in the back and temporarily fabricate that radiator in my engine because coolant looked great in that system radiator seems healthy in it just to cheaply diagnose it since I cannot afford an IR temp gun which would be strictly temporary to see if it will idle without over heating to further diagnose. Coolant temps are my main concern and even though the oil is slightly burned, it seems decently healthy with no water, rubbed my fingers furiously for like 10 mins looking for water lol.

if it's a head gasket I could fix it myself without too much trouble as I took engine building not too long ago at a trade school. Just slightly concerned is all, and wouldn't mind insight from more wise people who know more.

not looking to be the idiot, or get flamed here, not everyone can fix everything at once.

One thing I am very curious about is: could miswiring anything in the interior effect the sensors in the engine bay like that, or a faulty battery? because my car barely ever starts on a cold day and iv'e had the battery tested good like 12 times from advance auto, and iv'e been cleaning every terminal I can find, upgraded batery terminals to platinum plated terminals and such but it didn't help, and they said I have no parasitic draw. Maybe they're all idiots and lying?

I had to tell half the stupid kids how to use the damn machine, and oddly enough I couldn't get a job there at the various different advance auto's I've applied to lol.

I think the ripple is 35mV, and the draw is next to nothing can't remember, the battery shows no more than 400 cranking amps on an hour long drive, and there's other wiring problems in the interior too. problems ALL OVER that would be supported by a dead battery but it never shows up as dead. I might charge the battery in a warm place tomorrow with a tiny heater near it all night trickle charging and take my step dad's pickup with the battery to advance then retest it while it sits, not sure.

EDIT: can't remember all the details because I lost the print out thing from michigan but I think my alt was running a little high but tested fine but they don't know that there's circuitry to lower voltage in alt do they?

Battery might be worn out. IIRC the CCA minimum for the Riv to function right is 450CCA, below that and the voltage sags, leading the sensors to malfunction. Disconnect a battery terminal and just measure voltage at the battery. How far below 12.6v is it?

Weird, I was thinking it could be the battery and I'll let you know when it warms up in daylight. Iv'e had enough of the 6 months of winter Iv'e accumulated by moving and bad timing :p

EDIT:

Weird part is me and my step dad (a master mechanic) argued about that and he thinks I screwed up wiring somewhere or bad ground whereas I blamed the battery.

Thing wont even hold a charge overnight and they say it has no parasytic draw. makes no sense in my opinion.

Also it really did this bad in michigan bad winter storm time would barely ever start but once it ran it worked fine but this is when only the camshaft sensor came up bad and a couple other minor codes and it was like 5 engine codes at one point

From what I've ever seen the heads, especially the earlier castings, will have barely visible cracks between each of the two valve seats. That would at worst would cause a capillary leak which could very from miniscule to still miniscule depending on heat/stress/etc. I've never heard of it causing any noticeable symptoms under usual driving conditions. I'd do a compression/leakdown test and see what's leaking into what. Pressurize coolant system (after repairing the obvious stuff - radiator)

You've got so much left and right in there I don't even know dude haha
Two things I'd say. Buy a radiator. You need it. Cooling is like really important.
Battery is a tricky thing sometimes (even though it shouldn't be) If there was a really simple way to go about it, i'd be checking current draws/voltage drops different places while cranking and charging. You might wanna just run a dedicated ground from the battery to the block like James has mentioned for having perpetual electrical issues in this car. Chassis grounds can definitely degrade over the life of the car which causes all sorts of sneaky problems.

Those 102 & 341 codes are pretty popular it seems like. I had those and they were wiring in my case, the big engine harness connector at the firewall. Wouldn't hurt to have a look at that guy.