Blew a spark plug out - how driveable is it?

[911pcars]

Originally Posted by dannobee

You do NOT want to put the piston at TDC. The tap will bore right into the top of the piston. Turn the crank until the piston drops down in the bore. Removing the chips from the cylinder is easier by using the small pipe down the hole and blowing them out than by vacuuming them out. Vacuum simply doesn't work. Like I said, I've done a few of these. BTDT. The tool that I referenced comes with inserts that stay in place by deforming the last thread with a special tip that's included in the kit, along with using red loctite. There are no tangs to lose into the cylinder like with helicoils.

Good catch. I've not yet had the pleasure of performing this operation on spark plug threads.

Also be careful of piston and stroke position. E.g. on overlap, when both valves are slightly open, make sure the tap drill and tap clear the valves, or perhaps the angle of the spark plug hole does that automatically.

[Otter74]

I'm happy to report that the car is running normally again, and I *didn't* have to do an engine drop. Thanks to @dannobee's mentioning it, I gladly paid an extra $225 for the Stomski jig to address exactly my problem. I used the jig and a TimeSert kit, and It worked like a charm; I give extra credit to Steven Stomski for his terrific customer service in answering all my questions. It took me a few hours to fix, and that's because it was my first time so I was over-preparing and going really slowly.