Hello all,

I'm looking to buy an LSJ cylinder head. I had the spark plug come out of cylinder 2 and I was fortunate enough for it to take all the threading out with it. I'm trying to avoid doing a helicoil because it is my DD and I don't really want to take the chance of having the plug come out again while I'm on the road. If anyone knows someone selling a head or if you're selling a head please let me know!

 

If it were mine i'd do a helicoil. They're stronger than the original threads.

 

I would do the same

 

You guys that do helicoil on cylinder heads do you remove the head to do this what do you do about metal shavings getting into the cylinder?

 

Hmm maybe I'll just go ahead and do that then. I'll look around and see what I can get for a quote to get this done. Do either of you know what a "good" price for this is?

I've heard of people either having the head removed or using a grease to capture the metal shavings. I'm interested to know what the best way is though.

 

I haven't done it, but I'm the type that would do it myself. It's really easy (as long as you have a good way to get the shavings), the only issue is the helicoil kit costs ~$40 or so. A shop should have the kit and should charge minimal for it (hour max), esp since our spark plugs are easy to access. Just call a few places and see.

BTW some of our helicopter parts at work are made new with helicoils because they are stronger than the original tapped hole, esp in aluminum. The larger hole has stronger threads, and you seal the threads with adhesive when you install the helicoil.

 

Thanks for the heads up, I appreciate it. I'll start looking around where I'm at here in the DFW area and see what I can find as far as shops to do the work.

 

Our shop would charge around 1 to 2 hours of labor to do a helicoil for something like a ecotech engine. I agree do the helicoil, itl be stronger than the original threads so long as you put it in right and seal it correctly. For getting the shavings out I use a vacuum with multiple downsize pvc adapters to a plasic pcv hose.

 

Awesome, thanks for the heads up. I definitely don't plan on doing it myself. I've installed helicoils before but never in an automotive capacity and I don't want to find out that I don't know what I'm doing by further damaging my car lol. I'll have to look around here and see what I can find as far as shops that can get this done, if anyone is local to DFW and has any recommendations I would greatly appreciate it

 

Somewhat of an update, I got the car towed to a performance diesel shop and they installed the helicoil on the car in about 2 hours lol. So it's ready to get picked up, my work schedule has kept me from getting the car yet but the machinist said that it's running perfectly fine so that's a good sign. I'll update when I get the car back in my possession to see if it actually worked.

Good news is, it was only $100 for the helicoil, labor, new plug, install and they had to jump the car since the battery had died which makes sense because the car has been sitting in front of my house for about 6 months without being started .