I making my down to the cylinder head gasket. Im at the point where I need to remove the head. Looks like the head bolts are some sort of star head. Could this be right? do I need a special tool to remove the head? none of my 6 point or 12 MM sockets fit snug.

Any one replace thier head gasket?

 

it could be a torque screw like is the star inside then there is the octigon shape bolt or is the actual shape of the bolt head a star?

 

I just removed the head off my 1990 mazda protege the other day and had it jet washed(I know thats not what your asking lol) I used a 12mm 12 point socket(make sure its a deep socket cause a shallow one wont cover the hole head of the bolt) and a breaker bar/or known as a tommy bar, after some pulling, I got them all out, make sure you loosen them in the reverse order of tightening or you will warp your cylinder head

I just started taking my 1992 mazda protege cylinder head off last night and ran into a problem, I got 9 of the 10 bolts loose, but one is jammed/over tightened, I tried everything to get it out I even put an impact gun on there and all that did was strip the head of the bolt(dont use an impact on it if you run into the same problem) I was told the vibration could crack the engine block! one of the other 9 was over torqued so my dad used a burns-o-matic and heated up the head of the bolt a little then tried loosening it and it cracked loose! but I still have the 8th bolt stuck in there.

Im changing the cylinder head, ts been jet washed, (which I would recommend to anyone to have done if they are changing the head gasket!
Jet washing only cost me about 30 bucks and it the head looks almost brand new) and head gasket on mine

Let me know how yours goes!

Oh P.S. if you want to see how my cylinder head looked before and after being jet washed, let me know I took pics