just wondering.. too many opinions on my EF, mechanic checked my car over after a random miss, hard starting, loss of some power, frequent loss of small amount of water from overfil tank. does it really sound like a small crack in head gasket, or is my dad right in saying injectors need cleaning????

yeah unfortunatly your mechanic sounds correct, if its hard to start i will be because water is getting into the cylinder, if its missing possible from poor compression or water again, and loss of power all of the above. So yer prety good chance its you head gasket. possible your head if its got to hot. have a look at the oil see if its gradually getting hight or if its a lttle off colour like whiteish. or check your oil filler cap for a whiteish sludge build up. or check you coolant for like a chemial film on it. but with out seeing the car its to hard to say, but i do reakon the mechanics right.

good luck man, by the way how many k's it done?

check the colour of your spark plug tips to see if its leaking into the cylinders

check the side of the block (under exhaust manifold) as it is probably the most common place for them to leak.

dad said he meant different problem sorry, he was referring to injectors cause the car is hard to start, when it fires black smoke come out the exhaust. the oil is clean, no milky residue, just changed coolant today so cant check that now. hmm is there anything i forgot to include

kms sorry 186000

by the way thanks heaps for all ideas.

Another quick test you can do in addition to what's already been mentioned:
Slowly release your coolant overflow cap - do this when the engine is cold.
If you have a fair amount of pressure there - just like as if it was hot, then that's a clear indication you have combustion gases in the coolant, and your coolant is leaking into a cylinder/s.