Miata Mailing List: October 1993, Message #211
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   From: dbk@mozart.esl.com (David Kay)
Subject: Head R&R
   Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 17:03:04 -0400

People -

I've done a very stupid thing.

Somewhere along the line, I overtorqued my spark plugs, stripping the  
threads, and now I need to fix the head:  #4 plug is banging up and  
down, and #1 will go soon.  There's a process the name of which I've  
forgotten that a machine shop can do (the next generation Helicoil,  
as I understand) to fix it.

Now the problem is, this isn't a good thing to do with the head on  
the car -- something about metal filings dropping in the cylinder --  
and so it needs to be taken off and taken to the machine shop.  My  
shop (PR Motorsports in Hayward, for Bay Area folks) has it down as a  
6 hour job ($330) to take the head off and put it back on.

So, I'm thinking about doing it myself.  Have any of you done this?   
Is it rocket science?  I've R&R'd the heads on my Vee's motor, but I  
don't think that counts -- zero cams instead of two, for example.

Thanks in advance,
dbk