Well if the plastic coolant fitting on the back of the engine broke(common problem @ apprx 130k miles), you probably lost all of your coolant and overheated the motor. And if you noticed excessive smoke coming from the exhaust, you're probably burning coolant. Did the smoke smell sweet? Check your oil for coolant and your coolant for oil. These cars don't like being overheated, not even for a minute. The heater not working for the past week should've been looked at. It would've saved your engine. The heater stops working when you have air in the cooling system. It creates whats known as air-lock which prevents the coolant from circulating through the engine and into the heater core. A simple bleeding of the air in the cooling system would have prevented this from happening.
It's not a typical DIY type of job. You need to really know what you're doing. Most shops will charge between $1500-2000 to fix it. Basically, the head, including cams, valves and timing assembly has to be removed. The head should be resurfaced at a machine shop and new gasket installed. And that's being optimistic, hoping you didn't warp/crack the head, bend/cook the valves, damage pistons, connecting rods and/or cylinder walls. Then everything has to be re-timed, torqued, sealed etc.
Good luck!
Last edited by cooljess76; 12-31-2009 at 01:12 AM. | 
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