headers?

[bigjcc55]

Looking for some advice on headers, i saw a Greedy set at a reasonable price, and wondered if they are worth changing over the stock cast header? the car is off the road at the moment with a couple of small problems!! so an ideal opportunity to bolt on some new bits!

[Kit]

I posted a thread on a similar topic: http://www.type-ra.co.uk/vB/showthread.php?t=5728

I concluded that i'll go for a set of milsport headers from milsport.co.uk, have a read of the thread and see what you think?

[bigjcc55]

Thanks for the link, the milsport ones look much better quality!

[scooby ra]

Only worth changing if your going for big power, cheaper option is to port and heat wrap your oe ones. You only need after market ones if your aiming for over 370/400 brake.

[bigjcc55]

Would a fmic give better gains than the headers? ive seen the milsport kit is fairly priced, is it any good?

[scooby ra]

Depends what spec you have now and what you plan to do with it mods wise. A front mount helps to reduce intake temps and helps with reliability as the top mount becomes pretty useless at high speeds.

A cheap upgrade is to port your headers out and heat wrap them, the manifold is miss matched to the head and has a large lip that slows down the exhaust gases.

Grinding them out to the gaskets greatly improves turbo spool up.

You can see the soot line here:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/bargainalloys/SN013.jpg

And then ported out

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/bargainalloys/SN017.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/bargainalloys/SN015.jpg

[bigjcc55]

Thanks for the pictures! looks straight forward enough, did you do these your self? the headers are off my car at the moment as the engine is out so it would be daft not to try this.! where did you get your heat wrap? the last stuff my mate got for a front pipe was crap off ebay.

[scooby ra]

Thanks for the pictures! looks straight forward enough, did you do these your self? the headers are off my car at the moment as the engine is out so it would be daft not to try this.! where did you get your heat wrap? the last stuff my mate got for a front pipe was crap off ebay.

Yeah I did my own. You will need a grinder the cut the lugs off and a high speed cutter and a dis grinder. I used an air powered one, I tried an electic drill but it took ages.

Split them down and just port in the direction of flow.I bought my heat wrap from here: Been on the down pipe for 3 years now.

http://www.agriemach.com/product_info.php?products_id=363

[bigjcc55]

Thanks for the pics and the link. the wrap is on it's way, and iv'e got most of the grinding done. A couple more questions about the heat shields did you remove them all? including the one at the front with the expansion joint? did u grind off the mounts?

[scooby ra]

Good man ;) Yep take all the heat shields off and grind all the lugs off with a cutting disk. When you putt the wrap on run it though a bowl of water to make it moist - it will go on better and shrink a bit once dry.

Try and get some stainless wire to twist around the wrap to keep it in place, or some stainless jubilee clips (steel ones rot very quick)

One last thing get 1 or 2 tins of VHT paint to spray the heat wrap with once fitted - it stops water getting into it.