I have a 95 GS and the head has a crack between the intake ports just before the intake valves on every cylnder. what could have caused this??? Is there any way to keep it from happening, or is it normal??

 

Post some pics of the cracks.

 

its a 420A..
lot of neons have problems with that..
poor design and i bet you the cracks are between the valve seats :P
also the failed head gaskets come from overtightening the head bolts and after a repated heat/cold cycle they stretch and loose the clamping load.
whe reinstalling the head i suggest a accurate torque wrench and follow the instructions to the smalles detail...
i replaced too many HG on neons

 

The head bolts were on so tight that i had to use a breaker bar just to get the head bolts off. So overtightening is the root cause huh. thanks I will unsure that I don't repeat that mistake.

 

also a good practice is to retorque the head at the first oil change as well.
havent had one fail just yet.
and my buddy's neon has 300K+ on the engine and no problems besides the cam/crank gremlins.

 

crank/cam gremilns??? can you expound a little on that? What happened?

 

they seem to fail with very lil stress.
not one of my buddies that take long trips with their 420A powered neons dont leave withoutthe folowing list:
crank and cam sensor, basic tool box (including a multimeter and a bosch or siemenstypenoid lite), a spare coil anda set of plugs.

that does not include the factory spare, jack and tire iron.

and im sure im missing something

 

any pics? it will make your query easier.

 

my old 420a GS Eclipse did half of this.....so oh yeah its true