Just saw this Youtube video pop up (uploaded a week ago). A pretty popular Professional mechanic youtuber who does general auto repairs South Main Auto Repair LLC. Not sure if anyone has done a video yet on repairing a blown spark plug (threads damaged) on the Fit. He did it on a 2009 model. He did the DIY repair of tapping and heli-coiling the blown out threads. Pretty straight forward repair and he did it really quickly (although he is a pro), and filmed what he could (it was basically a blind repair job). The reason for doing it this way is that he understands the repair costs of either replacing the motor, the head, etc. would deem it cost prohibitive versus the value of the car. Really good channel as he covers all makes and models and what ever problem rolls into the shop. Hope it helps somebody who has had this common Honda Fit problem.

 

I lost interest when he said, "Let's start this up and see what happens."

 

@keywestyakker I really like the dude from south main. He's intelligent, humble, and considerate. I've seen a few of his videos and he really does try to help people through saving them money. I've met a good few mechanics over the years that worked in a similar fashion. The fixes at times struck me as lazy, so I was a bit spiteful. That's the pitfall of budget orientation though, you err on the side of not doing enough.

With that said, the gents I viewed as such each had 35-50 years of experience. The truth of it is that I'm often not skilled/knowledgeable enough to think of everything when doing the "simple" fix. An example of this would be the fact that on my first and only helicoil (threaded insert) repair attempt on another engine, I overshot the depth and cut the backside of a valve. In all likelihood that played a significant role in the timing chain of the same engine snapping later, leaving me with a bunch of learning opportunities.

I'm sure there are tricks to avoid that. I could likely do an insert now, but I wouldn't recommend it. With that said, there are a few guys here that have had success with it on our engine.

 

If I were to tackle that job at home, I'd certainly remove the intake, as it's not that difficult and will provide a lot more working space. His bore scope camera certainly was useful to diagnose, wonder why he didn't use that first.

On second thought, I'd seriously thing about pulling the engine and do the work with the motor on an engine stand. Huge job.