I had a DC 4-2-1 header with US collector on my ITR. This was stupid being I had headwork and cams, so it was time for an upgrade. Being as cheap as I am, I went for the DC 4-1 JDM header. About a year ago I put the header on my car and torqued everything to spec. I forgot to use anti-seize compound...this is what happened.

Jack the car up...my jack stands are burried somewhere in my storage building, a paint can and jack work just fine.


Off comes the hader...look at the top three holes on the left


How about a closer look...








Here's what is left of the bolts



I decide to use a Craftsman easy-out kit for broken bolts. I follow the directions and everything is going smooth. Once we have the easy out locked in to the bolt and apply the torque....SNAP


Here's what is left of the easy out in the head





I then bought a nice Makita 90 degree drill to get down in there to drill them out. I spent all night tonight working on that. I drilled all of the way through the bolt above cylinder #2. I then used a THICK easy out from Harbor Freight. It snapped too. So, I said **** it and put the header on with the three bolts still in the head.

Anyone know what I should do now? The only thing that I know to do is to take the head off and take it to a machine shop and have them drilled out and re-tapped. Any help would be great. BTW, open header is LOUD!!! I know my neighbors loved me firing it up at 11:00pm.

Sorry for the long post. Thanks for the help Mickey & TJ.

Cliff notes:

Had shitty header. Went to take it off. Bolts broke. Could get them out. Said **** it and put header on anyway.

 

Holy **** Batman! First time I have seen that. Machine shop seems to be a good bet, just time consuming.

 

You don't necessarily have to use antiseize
when I torque my lug nuts I always put some motor oil so that the wheel stud doesn't rust
which is what you could have done to.
anyways another way, to save yourself money
is to drill a hole
and retap it yourself
there are kits at homedepot where you can do this.
and yes, there is still a way to get it out even though it looks bad.
If I remember correctly, pep boys sell a complete tap and die set for 30
try them
drill a hole, and then buy the set, and you should be fine

 

holy crap,

what a "head"ache

good luck

 

Damn man, that sucks, I have never had any luck taking out stripped/snapped bolts...the most extreme I have heard of though is welding onto the end of them, which well will be real hard. Never tried it myself though. If nothing else works there is always helicoils

 

I bought a 40 piece tap & die set (metric) at Harbor Freight for $10 this weekend. I didn't think that I could drill them out perfectly straight myself with the head in the car. Looks like it's time for the head to go to the machine shop. This car is the damn devil.......

 

Looking at that makes me want to cry~ any techs out there are feeling your pain....believe me. Next time WD-40 is your friend.

Your going to need some high quality drill bits so ante up. You will be drilling through hardened steel now. Not impossible just time consuming.

Good luck and just take it slow...let the drill bit do the work. Using a torch always makes it easier but in this case i wouldn't recommend it...aluminum.

 

oh yeah..using a center punch before drilling helps keep the bit from walking......

Louie~ who has delt with many a broken bolt. Damn trainees.

 

danggg.... that is just hardcore bad luck

 

since you have the headers on, warn up the eng. good, then while its still hot, remove the headers, then use a pick and a hammer to try and back -up the brocken studs, it might take you a while.

 

These craftmen bits work better.

 

Craftsman bits do work better.

Brad, the guy i got my hatch from did the same thing, overtorqued the bolts. Was a BITCH. A guy up at ProFab got the 2 out that were broken off when i went up there tryin to get info on my Cage i wanted. Did something kinda like that but with some nice looking tools i had never seen b4.

Good luck to you! Drive the car open header, its not that loud!

 

Brad that happened because I didnt help

 

DAmn I had no idea what the hell I was looking at till I looked a 2nd time. That sucks man, hope you can maybe get it out or something.
If not; we learn from our mistakes yeah?

 

I recently had to use the craftsman easy outs as well and it worked like a charm. Ive heard of people breaking those too though. You might want to soak that thing as much as possible with some PB Blaster before trying to back it out. It might help somewhat. good luck!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RTW DC2 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">You might want to soak that thing as much as possible with some PB Blaster before trying to back it out.</TD></TR></TABLE> soaking the bolts helped me out very much when I suffered the same fate on the far left bolt... in fact I drilled THRU the broken part and then hammered in a hex socket bit piece thingie-majig then attached the ratchet and out it came, very esily too... I didnt have an easy out, just a small hex bit for a socket set/ratchet.