Look what he had to do to get these headers to fit

[QUOTE]StealthLT4:
Well I got everything buttoned back up, but something's not right :ack:. There's a weird, almost 'gurgling' sound at low RPMs under light-to-medium load conditions. If I floor it it goes away, and it's not there at idle or when engine braking. The only thing I can figure is that there's a hole in the welds where the cat connection was fabbed up, since there are a lot of them. Also, it may be the way the cats are configured. I'm not sure if there's enough room after the bend for the air stream to 'straighted out', and it may be causing turbulence once it hits the cat, since it's coming in at an angle.

Here's a quick drawing of how the exhaust is routed right now. Basically, it's like this because that's all there's room to do. The headers are at the top, and the angled boxes are the cats. Then they go right into the H-pipe and the Corsa resonator. Should there be a problem with this setup?

There's also a pic just comparing the Vette Tech headers to the EM ones I took off. So much longer!

[IMG]http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff130/m090030/exhaustdiagram.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff130/m090030/CIMG1836.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]

They appeared to be a cool idea, but everyone seems to have to beat the bejezus out of them to get them to fit, plus they're so long that connections are a real hassle.

yuck.

Yikes. Some massaging seems necessary for most but thats pretty extreme. They wouldnt take them back?

Those Vette-Tech's are the headers I've got. Besides being irritatingly
slow, he gave me good service and stood by the product. I had a issue with the #2 tube clearance of the upper control arm, but he was able to solve that in only a month or so. The part I sent him came back re-coated and ready to go.
I wanted to get some stainless tri-y's, but couldn't afford them. This was the best I could afford. I would've taken the heat for the expensive set had I known just how much
fab work and general "richarding" around there was gonna be.
Just tonight, I fired it up with open headers for the 1st time. While much of the time frame to install was my own laziness as well as indecision on how to get it "just right", I still think there was too much additional creativity needed to install these headers.

I had a hard-on for those when I first stumbled across them on ebay, but then I searched and found them posted there.

Damn I'm glad I didn't become the guinea pig there. I emailed him with specific questions about the clearance issues and he claimed it was all corrected after the first batch. Probably not.

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Are those the ones with the thread on CF with about 400 posts? Greggpenn or whatever was tinkerng with them too, right?

Lot of money for something that might add or subtract 5hp.

-- Joe

Wow, I am not afraid of fabbing up anything, but if I would not have gone to that extreme to get them to fit, i would have sent them back, no doubt.

Because my hooker headers did not fit my AFR heads well, I cut out the offending tube and welded in new length of tubing so the tube cleared the plugs and had them recoated, that was bad enough for sure.

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5hp? I know you're way ahead of me on modding these cars, but I did all this for 5hp? I'm expecting more than that.

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I think he meant as opposed to another brand of headers. Not counting stickers, of course.

Thanks for the clarification

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Yep..

-- Joe