A Header Story

[Jon Pennington]

HA!  I just helped a buddy out with the World's Longest Header Install,
which took EIGHT DAYS to complete (well, he's kind of a green wrench,
and I was only there for two days of it, but STILL).

He rounded two manifold nuts by using a 9/16" 12pt socket instead of a
14mm 6pt.  Trip to sears for the 5pc Bolt-Out kit, and that was mostly
taken care of.  One manifold nut came out as a bolt, as the stud had
backed out of the head.  No biggie, but even soaking overnight in a bath
of PB Blaster netted no gain on that front; Vicegrips just chewed up the
stud and the nut never budged.

The REAL horror was the cat.  Even though his 2.0 SE is only 4 years
old, the nuts on the cat were corroded solid.  We tried everything from
the Bolt-Out (chewed the head clean off of the nut), to the
double-Vicegrip trick (same result), to a Craftsman nut splitter (wouldn't
stay on the nut, dammit) to a propane torch (got the fasteners glowing
pink, but never so much as crackled or popped).  We finally just cut the
cat from the secondary and the b-pipe with an angle grinder, took it to an
exhaust shop, and had them drill it out.

Other than the sound (mostly from the HKS cat-back), I honestly don't
feal much gain from the install.  Maybe our intake tract is still a
restriction; I don't know.

--
-=|JP|=-        "Stew my foot and call me Susan!"

'01 B15 SE/PP  |   http://members.cardomain.com/cowboydren/   |  <//><
'95 SL2 Auto   |         cowboydren @ b15sentra . net         |