S&P Headers

Got them today with a set of black custom made taylor wires. The headers look great but I wish they had a 3/8" flange on them. Now that I have a set maybe it's time to buy a stainless header kit and build some long tubes. I ended up getting the same set that vettetruck89 purchased. I held them up by hand to the heads and it looks like it might be a little tight on top of the rear passenger side eccentric. I'll know better once installed. Not much left do do but the wiring. I built a custom stainless radiator cover/support and installed a hayden transmission cooler with all 3/8 swedgelok stainless hoses and fittings that adapt to the front tubing. An A/C belt, hoses, radiator hoses and some fluid and it's about over. If things go as planned at work, I'll be at the strip sometime late April. :rock:

sweet! performance parts! good luck on the install, dont scrape your knuckles!

If the headers don't fit right the bastards would have them back in no time at all. There is no excuse for them not fitting other than if they just didn't have them in the jig correctly, and if so that is their fault, also. Sounds like you're getting close. Don't compromise on anything, you've done too nice of a job to hack any other parts.

Hey Nitrous what do you think about those collecters? Personally they make me want to go on a homocidal rampage. Just a word of warning; once you get your exhaust welded to them don't ever loosen those bolts, and I mean never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever EVER!!!, because you'll play HELL getting them tight enough to keep from blowing out the gasket. Besides that I just don't like the design of them, just not very smart if you ask me. :twocents:

Oh did I say don't ever loosen those collecter bolts?

yeah what he said.... and make sure you tighten them before you install otherwise you will become both homicidal and suicidal.

Damn, I think I'll weld them up and add a collector further back by the cats. That would really be some long tubes! LMAO! If I decide to go homocidal, you'll know cuz I'll be blastin out some tunes from Far Beyond Driven, Vulgar Display of power or The Great Southern Trend Kill! Nah, That's just music to relax to. As you can tell motoxlifer, I'm a hard core Pantera fan like you! I miss o'l Dimebag!

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Damn, I think I&#39;ll weld them up and add a collector further back by the cats. That would really be some long tubes&#33; LMAO&#33; If I decide to go homocidal, you&#39;ll know cuz I&#39;ll be blastin out some tunes from Far Beyond Driven, Vulgar Display of power or The Great Southern Trend Kill&#33; Nah, That&#39;s just music to relax to. As you can tell motoxlifer, I&#39;m a hard core Pantera fan like you&#33; I miss o&#39;l Dimebag&#33;
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Yeah they just don&#39;t make metal bands like that anymore or guitarist for that matter :cry:

I pulled the headers out of the box today and started bolting up the collectors. One of the bolt holes are to close to the tube and the heads of the ARP bolts hit them. I called S&P and I asked them if I could open the hole up 1/8" towards the outside of the flange and they said ok. WhenI got through opening up the hole and making the bolt fit, I noticed the #3 and #5 tubes are touching each other. I tried to check clearance with a piece of paper LOL and couldn&#39;t get it to slide through. I got a hold of S&P header dept right as they were closing and they said they would talk with me in the morning about the problem and I said OK, I&#39;ll send you some pics. Hell with it, I&#39;m pretty anal when it comes to perfection and decided to ship them back in the morning even if they could work. I want the tubes evenly spaced to where I can get to the spark plugs easy. Just when you think things are going well all hell breaks loose&#33;&#33; I do have to say the chromex coating does look nice. I&#39;ve even heard that Mark Campbell the owner has taken very good care of his customers that have had problems with their headers. I do see some quality control issues that I would change if it were my design. I would add 3/8" stainless flanges and make sure the header flange ports were round instead of leaving weld metal in them. I&#39;ve had a few problems with S&P but I&#39;m willing to give them a fair chance at taking care of me before slamming them. They have a very professional work team when talking with them over the phone. I&#39;ll keep you posted.

Stick to your guns, Lance. If you can&#39;t get a piece of paper between the tubes, what&#39;s the chances that chromex got between them? Pretty slim I would bet.

If I remember correctly mine were ground smooth inside the flanges. Mark even says they grind the welds smooth in the video they sent me. Sounds like there are definitely some Q/C problems. I&#39;m sure you can see where I&#39;m coming from on those collecters huh Nitrous. Imagine trying to tighten those things up while their on the truck with very little space between the frame on one side and the motor & tranny on the other. What was wrong with a traditional style collecter is what I want to know, and why do they continue to make them that way?

Ya, I agree. I think they made them that way for the looks. I&#39;ts actually a pretty good design as far as sealing. I would have been pissed if I had to install them in place. I thought the complete o2 bung and collector was going to be stainless also but it&#39;s not. I checked them with a magnet.

the stainless collecters are extra. I think a 100&#036;. If you order them that way they wont be coated on the outside only on the inside.

FYI, there are a lot of magnetic stainless steels.

Ya, I guarantee these aren&#39;t stainless. We machine more stainless and do more metallurgy than most companies due to the nature of our buisiness. The flanges I have are stainless and the tubes are mild steel with a chromex coating. I talked with S&P this morning and they sent me another set of headers out this morning with no questions asked and even refunded all of my shipping expenses. I would definetely recommend them.

BTW, the headers they sent me were for a early model camaro to bypass the gearbox. What we need to order for our trucks 89 and up is a Monte Carlo type III or LS1 type III G body.

I received the 2nd set of headers last night with no questions asked. These look much better than the first set including the coating. S&P stood behind their product so I&#39;ll have to compliment them. Now, if I just had a couple of days off to finish.

I&#39;m still have a couple of wiring problems. There&#39;s a grommet P101 that goes throught the passenger side accumlator and has a white 10 plug connector (not too sure where it goes from the connector in the cab but it goes up through the dash but looks like it should be C200, C203 0r C204 but it&#39;s not) and a black 3 plug connector that looks like it goes to the blower. Now the Trans Am harness has a blue and a white connector that looks similar to the white one I have. This is going to be my hold up trying to interface these but I&#39;ll figure it out. The starter and three connectors off of the original harness are no problem, I have them figured out and ready to mount. Oh, and the oil pressure switch, it shows to be a tan wire but I can&#39;t find one in the harness anywhere. I stripped out everything going to my old PCM and left everything else since there&#39;s alot of stuff that doesn&#39;t go there like the the shift indicator/neutral safety switch, etc... If anyone else had this problem let me know. I&#39;ve just been too damn busy at work and not enough time to research.

Thanks

Ok,I finally got the right headers after numerous attempts. The drivers side fits wasome but the upper control arm still hits the manifold in 2 places. I&#39;m about ready to say F-it and put the damn manifolds back on. Looks like my passenger side eccentric and bracket are hitting 2 seperate tubes. I&#39;ve tried both motoxlifers and 89vette&#39;s style headers since S&P sent both styles in the attempt to receive the correct one&#39;s. My options are to raise the motor another 3/8" which means dropping the front suspension again, making thicker adapter plates, installing plates under the motor mounts which I have a set I made last year or grinding the hell out of the eccerntric. I&#39;ll keep you guys posted on what happens. :tantrum:

Or you could just beat the hell out of them like I did Nitrous. :smile:

LOL&#33; If I still had your style header I probably would. I&#39;ve got 89vette&#39;s style and they would be a little bit harder to do that to them. I&#39;m gonna go ahead and lift it up and see what it looks like. BTW, Cool little vid you got. I can&#39;t wait to make me one.

Looks like I&#39;m sending them back again. I tried raising the tail of the tranny to get the clearance and raising the engine and I still need clearance. The tubes must be further out towards the fender than 89vette&#39;s. They&#39;re either gonna have to bend the tubes or shorten the header at the flange to bring them towards the motor more. As long as this is taking I should have taken the truck and had custom long tubes made. LOL I will have to say S&P has stayed beside me on the issue. We&#39;ll see what they say tomorrow after I tell them about this.

Sorry to keep this thread going but I&#39;d thought I&#39;d tell you S&P is still standing by their product. They&#39;re going to custom build my passenger side header and pay for all of the shipping costs. I told them what I wanted and how to build this header where the motor can sit high or low and still have plenty of clearance between the upper control arm eccentric. They will be able to take this jig and put the truck header set in their catalog instead of trial and error.

Sweet&#33; Good job Nitrous. Just wish you would have done this about 6 months ago. Maybe while they&#39;re listening to you, you can get them to change their gayass collectors. Hell while your at it get em to just go ahead & make some longtubes. :smile:

Ya, the collectors will be a pain in the butt to change gaskets due to the bolt to header clearance I made sure I put all of the nuts facing towards the ground to make things easier.

Just form yourself a large tube and weld it to the flange instead of using the collector. Then you can make them like a long tube. I wonder if that would really work since the exhaust gases would already be combined. A large tube where the stock flange is, down from there with a 4" tube like it were a standard long tube exhaust header and then to a standard reducer flange.... I wonder what that would do to the feel of the exhaust.

That would be pretty easy. I think it would act as a long tube header.

anything from a 3.25" or larger pipe would provide more flow area than four 1-5/8" diameter exhaust tubes.

I agree. I think they built the flanges for flow characteristics. All of the tubes go into a 5" area that swedges down to a 2 1/2" pipe. Too bad it has the 02 bung in it already, if it didn&#39;t I would get mark to bump it up to a minimum of 3" I&#39;m running 2 1/2" exhaust now but I&#39;d replace it with 3" if that were the case. Right now anything larger than the 2 1/2" flange pipe wouldn&#39;t help me out since the 2 1/2" exhaust would restrict it. I guess we could always install cutouts. :duh:

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I agree. I think they built the flanges for flow characteristics. All of the tubes go into a 5" area that swedges down to a 2 1/2" pipe. Too bad it has the 02 bung in it already, if it didn&#39;t I would get mark to bump it up to a minimum of 3" I&#39;m running 2 1/2" exhaust now but I&#39;d replace it with 3" if that were the case. Right now anything larger than the 2 1/2" flange pipe wouldn&#39;t help me out since the 2 1/2" exhaust would restrict it. I guess we could always install cutouts. :duh:
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How do you figure they built them for flow characteristics? The collecters reduce down to 2 1/2" so abruptly I can&#39;t see how they could possibly flow well. Sorry but I hate these headers. The only reason I&#39;m runnin em is they&#39;re the only header available & I hate manifolds even more. BTW they sell collecters without bungs (or buns as S&P calls them). I thought about cutting the collecter off just before it necked down and having the exhaust shop weld on some 4" pipe or so & then reduce it down to my current exhaust. Might as well have them weld the collecters to the header while they&#39;re at it, so I wouldn&#39;t have to worry about any more leaks. My driver side coll. is leaking now and driving me crazy. I can&#39;t get the bolts tight enough with the header installed to keep it from blowing out the gasket. They&#39;re welded to the exhaust so I will have to cut them off and have them rewelded. :tantrum: Did I mention that I hate these headers?

LMAO&#33;&#33;&#33; I think they have better flow than the shorties. JMHO Let me explain myself, I should have done that in my previous post. If you took this design, bumped the collector up to 3" to 3 1/2" and had the collector welded into it and not bolted I think the flow design would work. I&#39;m supposed to be getting the dyno papers from these headers which are supposed to increase HP by 20. I agree, they could have made a long tube and eliminated the mid length but Danny said they didn&#39;t have a jig jet since they use pre bent tubing. The reason they left the header like this is because your average joe isn&#39;t gonna put 3" or larger exhaust on his truck. He&#39;s gonna stick with the stock 1 5/8". What size exhaust are you running? 3" or larger and dumping it in front of the rear axle? If not, a different header isn&#39;t gonna help out that much.

Hey motoxlifer, did you go by the header break in procedure? I&#39;m sure you did but I thought I&#39;d ask.

Ummm what header break in procedure? I guess I missed that part. What is it? I&#39;m runnin 2 1/2" exhaust dumped in front of the axle. What do you mean the average joe is going to stick with the stock 1 5/8"? Is stock exhaust tubing 1 5/8"? I thought our primary tubes were 1 5/8". I did some reading on exhaust sizes and from what it said with my motor & mods it would be a waste of time & money to run 3" pipe. I like the looks of these headers & I&#39;m sure they make some extra power. I&#39;m just pissed off at em because of the problems I&#39;ve had with them.

I was pretty tired last night I believe the stock exhaust tubing is 1 7/8. Nevertheless, it&#39;s way too small. Ya, they have a break in procedure where you make a short exhaust run and then tighten everything back up before you drive it. I&#39;ll have to post what it says. It was really simple. It also tells what to wash the coating with. I hear what your saying about the headers though, they&#39;ll just have to get us by until we can find something else.

My collecter didn&#39;t start leaking until I took my truck to the shop to have them drop the tranny & replace that oil bypass plug in the back of the block. They had to drop the driver side exhaust down because it crosses under the trans., so they unbolted that collecter. Well they should have just cut the pipe & rewelded it because they didn&#39;t get those bolts tight enough & the gasket blew out. Then I ordered another one & replaced it. Guess what, it blew again because I couldn&#39;t get it tight enough either. So I ordered another one but I&#39;m not gonna replace it until I know I can get it tight. The problem is those bolts are so close to the prim. tubes you can hardly get a wrench or socket on them, then add the very cramped quarters between the frame rails & the trans. & that = thoughts of homocide & suicide combined with an overwhelming urge to drive to Arkansas.

:rofl: ROTFLMFAO&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;& #33;&#33;&#33; They bent the tubes inward to give me clearance because I complained about that also, so next to each bolt there&#39;s about a 1/2" dimple in the tube. I noticed when I tightened the flanges I stretched the hell out of the bolts so I&#39;m sure they&#39;ll need to be replaced if they leak. The other thing I didn&#39;t like is they gave me stainless bolts with stainless lock nuts. That&#39;s a big no&#33; no&#33; I put nickel anti-sieze on them to keep from gaulding but will probably go back with carbon steel next time. I don&#39;t know why they didn&#39;t make the collector flanges a little larger to compensate for the bolt to tube clearance problem. Sorry to hear all your problems, I feel your pain too&#33;

Damn Ford engineers&#33;

Yeah that&#39;s the other thing that makes it a bitch to tighten them is those damn locking nuts. BTW mine have dimples in the tubes too, doesn&#39;t help me much though.