Awesome car but you might want to consider letting someone else work on it. Your head is obviously somewhere else and that can be disastrous. I understand the sentiment of wanting to DIY, (and maybe the shortage of good 356 mechanics in your part of the world), but just the presence of a helicoil in a head in the first place says that something isn't right in that garage. Plugs should only be threaded in by hand. Never a wrench.

Nice cars and great taste, though! :cool:

you fall down the stairs again, Tabs?
being mean-spirited, has that become your default setting?

I first built this engine 30 years ago and there is no way I would have junked these heads just because they had Helicoils in them. I mean, being a purist is one thing, but junking otherwise good 912 heads because they have Helicoils? C'mon.

I wouldn't have junked them either, I would have had them welded and re-tapped or at least put in a time cert. Helicoils are junk, sorry. I was commenting more on how plug holes in aluminum heads get damaged in the first place but maybe you did not do that. :cool:

912s came from the factory with Helicoils (or some German version thereof) in the spark plug holes. Every 356/912 head I've ever seen has had Helicoils in them, and I've seen a lot. I think they all came that way, at least from the mid-1950s on up. I have never had a problem with them before. I've never heard of anyone taking them out on purpose.
TimeSerts hadn't even been invented when I built this engine.