[Corvette Mike]

Hello all from a long time Probe owner and first timer here.
Although my first love is Corvettes, my daily driver is the GT!
I have had this car for six years and have been experiencing a major problem since I let someone else drive my Probe. It came back with coolant in the number 1 cylinder. I removed the head expecting a leaking head gasket, what I found was something much worse. It has either a small crack or pin hole in the sparkplug hole. I bushed the hole with a Helicoil insert (it looks something like a pipe bushing) and JB Weld smeared between the threads of the insert and the head to seal the coolant leak. It worked for three months. The cost of a new head is way out of line, a wrecking yard head is somewhat similar.
I have purchased a 91 non turbo car for parts ( hey it was only $61.00 per Ebay). My local Mazda guy tells me that the head is the same for both, I'm assuming if so, that the cam profile, springs and valves are not.
Can any of you Probe experts confirm this?
Thanks for any information you can supply.
Mike

 

[Nylie]

Im going to move this into the GT forum for you...you should get more responses there. Good luck.

 

[Corvette Mike]

Sorry
I always post in the wrong place when on a new forum.
Hey Nylie, I was born in the old Woodland hospital.
Hope you are not too young to remember it?
And I always have to edit my typing, thats what happens when you get old!

 

[Nylie]

Hmmm...refresh my memory a bit. I grew up in the Bay Area, so refresh me a bit.

 

[Corvette Mike]

I belive it was torn down some 20 or 30 years ago.

 

[Trey]

E. Wentachee....dayum you're the closest one yet.

AFIK the heads themselves are the same for both, however the turbo's valves are different.

If you want (and haven't looked already) I can check here in Spokane tomorrow and see if I can find a turbo head.

Lemme know...

 

[Corvette Mike]

Thanks for the offer Trey
I will probably be over there this weekend visiting friends (been in Rockford hunting for the last month).
I have purchased a donor 1991 car, it went for $61.00 on ebay and I plan on stealing the head off of it (unless the car is as nice as the pictures appear). Wrecking yards get $300.00 for a turbo head, a little to pricey for my car at it's mileage level.
All of my hardware is good so I will just transfer it.
Thanks
Mike

 

[Nylie]

His name is Trey. Not steve. heh. He only quoted Steve Martin.

 

[Corvette Mike]

Oops!

 

[Nylie]

I think you should call him Steve. hehehe.

 

[Corvette Mike]

Deal!

 

[Trey]

I have a friend named Steve. That would just be too confusing for me....
:s5

 

[Gil Starr]

Steve... The little posting bunny that could... :s4



Guess I'm just a *****...:shh:

 

[Trey]

Steve... The little posting bunny that could... :s4



Guess I'm just a *****...:shh:

:MUha: :MUha: :MUha:

I think I can, I think I can, I think i can.............choo! choo!

 

[92pgl]

The heads aren't the same. They are physically the same but the compression is different. The 2.2L N/A compression is in the 9's verses the 2.2L F/I (GT) is in the 7's. Even with stock boost amounts this can cause damage to your whole engine. It might work if you got a boost controller and turned the boost REALLY REALLY low on it.

 

[J-Spec]

92pgl- I thought the compresion differance was coused by the pistion. Not the head.

 

[Corvette Mike]

I have the heads removed now, they appear identical. I will beaker them to make sure.

 

[Trey]

The pistons are the reason for the compression difference. It's too costly for the manufacturer to change the heads to accomidate that much of a change.

 

[Corvette Mike]

I wonder if the valves and the cam are also the same?
The valves have the same markings, The cam lift appears the same, The combustion chambers are the same. Much easier to get the head off the NA engine. Way too many vacuum hoses and brackets on the turbo engine! Oh well, just what I wanted to do on a snow day, put my car back together! Woho such fun!

 

[Corvette Mike]

The head casting number is different, 220 on the turbo, 201 on the NA engine. I can see no difference in the head casting. The exhaust valves have different markings, so I am using my old ones. The intakes are identical. The cams have the same markings, but the profile may be different, I'm not going to set them up to check the cam profiles (I am curious but not that curious). I will be putting it all back together Saturday, weather permitting, we have recived about 8" of snow today and it's still snowing. The garages are filled with the Corvettes and I'm not about to let them sit outside for a little head swap on the Probe.
My origional head got some further investigatin on the water leak.
After stripping the head, you can look through the front into the water jacket. There is a parting line that runs the through the head, it looks like it is cast from both the top and the bottom sides. The parting line runs through the sparkplug holes, and it appears that the casting was flawed. Just a little electrolisis and you have a hole that intersects the threaded portion of the hole.
Offda! Water in the cylinder! So $61.00 worth of head, grind the valves, spend a small fortune on gaskets and seals ($126.00), and a few hours of work and it should be running again.