Damage around the sparkplug holes in the heads...
03-04-2009, 12:08 AM
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Damage around the sparkplug holes in the heads... I swear, I can never catch a break. I've been 'working' on the car since late Dec 2008.
Anyways, while trying to take off the valvesprings, and realizing the crane tool is too big for the large valvesprings. I found the area around the sparkplug hole in the combustion area on 6 of 8 is damaged. The only ones that were ok were the first chamber on each set of heads (better cooling?).
Driverside head:
Random closeup:
Passenger side head:
These are 317 heads for my LQ9 block. They're a ported type head, is this perhaps the result of over-porting the material around the sparkplug hole? Creating a thinner metal wall that eventually broke away?
What am I looking at here? Do the heads need to be replaced
? Or can this be fixed? Is it a non-issue given how long the spark plug threads are?
:bigears
Anyways, while trying to take off the valvesprings, and realizing the crane tool is too big for the large valvesprings. I found the area around the sparkplug hole in the combustion area on 6 of 8 is damaged. The only ones that were ok were the first chamber on each set of heads (better cooling?).
Driverside head:
Random closeup:
Passenger side head:
These are 317 heads for my LQ9 block. They're a ported type head, is this perhaps the result of over-porting the material around the sparkplug hole? Creating a thinner metal wall that eventually broke away?
What am I looking at here? Do the heads need to be replaced
? Or can this be fixed? Is it a non-issue given how long the spark plug threads are? :bigears 
03-04-2009, 08:16 PM
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You don"t want exposed spark plug threads in the combustion chamber, They could get red hot and cause detonation or preignition. Also all that thin metal around the spark plug hole could do the same thing. If they were mine i'd be looking for replacements, just MO.
03-04-2009, 10:23 PM
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Yea I don't know what to do. Maybe a hollow tube thing to thread into the spark plug holes, then use a smaller sparkplug. Or grind down the sharp edges and use a double set of washers to pull the sparkplug back a few threads. But I don't know how much that will mess with the proper combustion. Doing something like that might partially hide or cover the sparkplug against the other side.
Dunno... heads are so expensive as I'd probably end up going with something like a 245cc Trick flow set, milled down.
