Helicoil Question

[WIDSM]

I just got a turbine housing and one of the bolt holes have been drilled out bigger and tapped to a coarse American thread. It's un known right now I'll bring a thread pitch gauge home tomorrow. Two of the other holes' threads are a little mashed, I ran a tap down them but they're still kind of messed up. So, my question is would I be safe to use a helicoil in those holes? I would like to use the factory bolts. Or I could just drill them out and tap them larger. There is one hole on the 02 housing that I'd like to fix as well.

 

[turbo23]

not sure if i'd heli-coil it.. locktight wont do you any good because of the temp.. you probably get it togather just fine, I'd be worried about the heli-coil backing out when you try to take it apart..

 

[romeen]

Personally, I would use the helicoils, mainly for the reason of allowing you to use the oem hardware. Although I haven't used a helicoil on the turbine housing I have read more than a few posts from guys who have and as far as I'm aware they haven't had any issues. But you may want to do a search nonetheless.

 

[nuclearr]

I would dril and re-tap too much vibration in my opinon. I think it would be okay to do one but it sounds like you want to do them all.

 

[cougarelimin8or]

not sure if i'd heli-coil it.. locktight wont do you any good because of the temp.. you probably get it togather just fine, I'd be worried about the heli-coil backing out when you try to take it apart..

Heli-coil's are fine to use, what do you think they use on race cars for spark plug threads in the heads? They can handle plenty of heat, just use thread locker that's good for high temps.

 

[knochgoon24]

If it's been drilled too much a heli-coil to fit OEM hardware might not even work. You'd have to take some measurements.

 

[99gst_racer]

Upon uninstalling my buddy's 16G, I found that one of his turbine housing bolt holes was heli-coiled. I normally wouldn't have trusted heli-coiling a turbine housing, but his proved to hold up to the factory torque spec, the bolts never came loose, and the gasket never had sealing issues. It's proven to be a worthy fix.

Although, if it were me, I'd simply drill out all of the holes and tap them a bit larger.