16 excrutiating rusted bolts and alot of swear words, and ive got exhaust manifolds off my car. Beleive it or not the drivers side was actually easier to get than the passengers, easier to pull to losen the bolts.

I dropped my exhaust system to the floor first, and slid that out from under the car. Then i took my time removing all the exhaust manifold bolts and pulled those heavy suckers out. Now my cars just waiting for the headers to be put in, which will be delayed untill sunday, because i have work the next 2 nights.

They seem like they will slip in quite nicely. Cant wait to fire it up . I think i will have sufficient clearance from the #5 pipe to the power steering pump hose, so i wont have to buy a 90 degree end for the hose. thats a plus lol. Well just thought id tell ya all what ive been up to. Next week i should be finding a time to take my car in and get the new exhaust system put in from reducers back. its gunna sounds nice . ill take pics too.

Sounds sweet. How much is this setup gonna cost?

-Ben

good job kiddo, keep up the good work. it's funny, installing headers on my old e12 530i bimmer was THE first excursion into automotive performance that i ever had... and i had thermal reactors to remove...i feel your pain with the cleveland.

i remember (at the time i was single) late nights up under the car with the sawzall trying to get the twin pipe setup off of the downpipes, it had all been welded up at one point or another...first time i had ever used a sawzall, i was so friggin scared of it. thought i was going to cut my hand off.

lo and behold i got it all off of there and got the headers on. then came the fun - i got to drive it open headered to the exhaust shop down the way. people scattered for miles.

jason

lol im gunna call up the muffler shop (Speedway mufflers in Redlands) on sunday, and make sure their estimate is still the same, 250 bucks. I think im gunna have AAA tow it down there for me, cause theres tons of cops and i dont wanna go through any trouble. But tomorrow if i do get it finished im gunan cruise around highland open headers .

The headers cost me about 190 bucks, but that included gastkets and bolts. I didnt know that, so i ordered the fel pro gastkets that came in the mail today, but the fel pros are better anyways so its worth the extra 20 bucks ehehe. I borrowed my neighbor's floor jack and jack stands, so this oughta go pretty smoothly, good thing i learned how to use the floor jack and jack stands in auto shop, cause my parents are goin crazy makin up stories of people (they say they knew but they really didnt) that got crushed under the car. Ive used jack stands sooo much in auto shop, and we only dropped one car on purpose. (later the teacher told us to flip the car upside down so we did, after stripping its guts )

Well cya, i gotta go to work

Try disconnecting one motor mount at a time and jack one side the motor to help gain more clearance when sliding in the headers. Like most thing that look like they will fit, they will grow to three times their size and be stubborn as hell. Good luck, maybe record a sound byte for us with the open headers. What mufflers are goin on this? Are you going to put in a crossover pipe?

Well the passenger side went in with no problems, hardest part was threading the first 2 bolts, at each end and holdin the gasket in place, but after that all the other bolts went right on and easy, plenty of clearance , although its pretty close to the transmission pan. But the drivers side is another story... Only reason i cant get it is because i cant life the car off the ground high enough with jack stands, in my garage, to put the header completely virtical, and sliding it up into the engine compartment like that. Thats the only way to get it in. So on monday im gunna have AAA tow it for me, down to the muffler shop and let them finish that header, and slap on the exhaust.

well, thats the plan, hope nothing gets in the way of it. If i had a 20 foot high garage and an auto lift id be all set. lol

Shit man, wouldn't we all

-Ben

heh my dad has one of them. has an engine crane AND a four post lift. so in 4 years when i need to do my car, then theres a workshop waiting for me. and a shitload of good tools.

Right on man, take advantage of that

-Ben

yeah, in case i need a three ton lift to fix my scooter. lol

only 3 tons? i guess british carsd are lighter

shit, I've got bottle jacks that will lift more than that.

Three ton lift is for the motorbikes.

since when do you need a "lift" for a motorbike my teacher has a lift type thing for motor bikes it's pretty much a table

i dont really get it either. it just has two arms on each end which you hook the bike over. i suppose it makes it easier to take the engine block out of some of the larger heavier bikes. the other sort you can get is a sort of ramp, which u wheel the bike onto and it lifts up.