Snake under my intake manifold?

[rfc2307]

Good Morning,

My 1997 E36 M3 started to overheat on the freeway last night, when I got it into the garage and popped the lid, there was an obvious high pressure hot water vapor hiss and cloud of steam coming from UNDER the intake manifold.

Does anyone know of a diagram that maps out the water path, maybe to or thru the throttle body or other paths outside the radiator cooling setup that I could trouble shoot with?

Or, has anyone heard of this before?

Looking down thru the engine bay, I could see water dripping onto the "X-brace" but could not see the source.

Any help (other than "...you've blown a head gasket...") would be appreciated.

[blkongry]

Man, that's got to be a cracked fitting or a ruptured hose to have that much water and hissing.... I don't think I've seen/heard of a head gasket letting go that way. I don't know the routing of the hoses under the hood, but I'd go after heater core hoses. Where abouts is the coolant coming? From just 'somewhere' under the plastic engine shroud?

[Jeron]

Do you think it overheated because the coolant was leaking or do you think it overheated and then the head gasket blew?

Hopefully it is just a coolant leak under the intake manifold possibly spraying onto the engine causing the extra stream.

realoem.com has parts diagrams that loosely show the routing of coolant hoses etc.