Kyitty's Humble Build Thread

I'm currently leaning toward the URD Spec-U Headers. Though it'll be a spendy deal in total! Local exhaust guy is estimating 6-8 hours for install time (though he'll charge for less if it takes less time). He also says I'll have to do the O2 Sim myself as he won't touch that for legal reasons he said.

I sent a message to the folks at URD to ask them exactly what components they believe I should order with the Spec-U headers if I do it. Want to make sure I get all the pieces I'll need (gaskets if needed, sensor extensions, O2 Sim, etc). This way I can estimate my real cost to do headers.

 

I think @Torspd could help you out as well with what's needed with those headers. Very informative build he's doing with his 2nd gen.

 

Luckily the O2 sim is quite simple, and just a few plugs. Make sure to plug it per the correct bank. Each plug is side specific.

I don't recall it taking even 3 hours for us to do the install.

The driver side is a little more difficult. We disconnected the steering coupling, after marking it, and pulled the top&bottom studs, closest to the firewall. Then the headers went right in.

Immediate improvement in throttle response.

 

Went on an 4x4 outing on Sunday with the local Toyota club! These are NOT my photos but were taken by a club member - and they're fantastic photos to boot! It rained the entire trip.

Driving through the fog.


At the end of the ride we came across the old "Comet Mine Camp" which is now a ghost town. The official population is 3 (caretakers who preserve the area). Really, really cool walking through these abandoned buildings.





Group Photo post ride:


This is the Wickes Tunnel (aka Boulder Tunnel). It was apparently built originally for a train line that was never completed. Now it's full of water and gravel. It is measured at 1.2 Miles straight through a mountain side.




Random Shots



Glorious photos the club took of my truck...

Love this Tripod shot! Nothing more awesome than the FEEL of lifting a tire off the ground... even if it's just a little. Makes me all giddy!






Really enjoyed this trip! All said and done it was 12 hours from my house, to the trail area, and back home again.

Official photos from the club here.

#PelfreybiltFamily btw. Loving that bumper and those fogs in these photos!

 

Truck looks great, and those are some real nice photos as well

 

Just pulled the trigger on URD Spec U Headers, O2 Sensor extension, and Rear O2 Sim

Time to get on my exhaust guy's schedule.

 

I wanna see this!!

 

For those interested, @SonnyBones , I will be visiting the local custom shop Thursday morning for a Dyno run pre-headers. We'll then be setting up a follow-up Dyno run sometime after the header install. They're nice enough that they are only going to charge me for one session even though it'll be two trips.

Just for giggles it'll be fun to see what the URD Spec-U Long Tube Equal Length Headers do on my truck. My truck currently has a K&N CAI, Spintech 6000 Muffler, and a re-routed crossover. The factory crossover pipe was oval shaped to make it... thinner. I noticed after the cross over was done it altered the exhaust note of the truck. I later had the exhaust tip cut off so the exhaust dumps over the axle (better offroad clearance). That made the exhaust note deeper too. So, theoretically my exhaust is a bit different from stock.

So I'm curious to see what the net gain is! Of course I plan to share the results with you all!

 

Awesome!! That's pretty awesome you have access to a dyno. I hope you get the HP numbers you paid for!!

 

Are we placing bets? If so I'm going with 11hp gain. Regardless of hp your truck is going to sound awesome.

 

Haha! By the time all is said and done I'll have spent more than $1k to do headers. So I'm kind of doubting I'll really "get what I paid for" HP wise. I'm not expecting anything big.

I'm looking forward to better sound for sure! For whatever reason that's exactly the number I'm expecting to see.

This is what URD says on their site:

 

17hp and 30tq would be a respectable gain for dollars spent. Are you going to use stock cats? Is there a possibility of deleting them all together?

 

The Long Tube headers necessitate removal of the front cats. So I'll only have 1/2 the cats after install. To prevent check engine lights I'm planning to install URD's 02 Simulator (though my exhaust guy refuses to put it in for me for "legal" reasons - even though we have ZERO emission laws in our state).

 

URD Headers showed up! They packaged those suckers REALLY well. Wrapped in bubble wrap, then in foam sheets, then in paper. I didn't actually unwrap them all the way since it's not install time....

But here's a 'skirt lift' photo...

 

Tease!! Lol

 

So I had the truck on the DynoJet this morning! Never done that before so that was kind of interesting. The kids complained about it being "loud" and said they couldn't hear themselves screaming while the truck was running.

Setup:



Video:



Results:

The first and 3rd runs are the accurate ones. The second run we hit the rev limiter pretty hard! The dyno tech thinks the motor also had some heat soak at that point. So it showed a big drop below the 1st and 3rd runs.


The guys at Darkhorse Customs who did the dyno run for me were great to work with. The initial first run showed as, IIRC, 195 RWHP. However, he said there are different settings on the machine to tell it what number to display. It's sort of a "here's the real HP to the wheel at the drum" vs "here's the estimated HP using an estimate for drive train loss". They said 20-25% is roughly the drive train loss. Doing simple math 195 HP + 20% = 234HP.

So there you are! Dyno run in advance of URD Spec-U Headers. I'll post up results next Thursday after we do a follow-up run post header install.

 

Yaaaass!! It's great to see the performance side mods and hard facts!! Glad you had the dyno opportunity!!

 

Just got my OEM Toyota Manifold Exhaust Gaskets.

Can't wait for Monday! Header upgrade here we come!

 

Looks Good !!

 

Well everyone I wish I had good news! But I don't!

After 7 hours of labor my exhaust guy finally got the URD Spec-U Headers, O2 Sensor Extensions, and O2 Simulator installed. The plus is that the O2 Simulator is literally plug and play. It just plugs in and you're done. However, in order to get the driver side header in not only did he have to loosen the steering linkage but he also had to lift the engine. Yes. Once you get the installation guide from URD it actually says you may have to lift the engine. And he did. All in all the labor costs were almost exactly the same as the price of the headers themselves (minus shipping, front O2 sensor extensions and O2 Simulator).

Here's a photo of the original "header" and catalytic converter. Pretty pathetic looking!!


All three ports drop into one collector basically. If these URD Long Tubes don't net any Horse Power & Torque gains I'm going to be pissed. LOL!

Okay so on to the worst news. It sounds... terrible.

Bear in mind my exhaust system is not stock. I have a K&N CAI, a re-routed cross over, a Spintech 6000 Muffler, and an axle dump exhaust pipe. All these things changed the stock exhaust note quite a bit.

Here's a Before & After comparison video:



So the exhaust guy and I decided immediately that I have to order a resonator to install on this thing. Driving this truck home was embarrassing. It sounds like every car out there I make fun of. Everything from 2,000 RPM to 2,800 RPM sounds like a metal coffee can was taped to the exhaust tip. It sounds like my muffler is loose and vibrating against the underside of the truck. It's terrible. The exhaust guy happened to have two 12" Vibrant resonators in his shop that are being installed on another customer's car tomorrow morning. So he hand fitted one onto my exhaust pipe just so I could hear what it sounded like. That... sounded much, much better. It actually gave the truck a "racey" sound (rather than raspy ricey). So he's going to order another one in for me and get it here as soon as possible. He said for resonators he prefers Vibrant as other brands, in his experience, blow out their packing material much sooner.

All that being said I really couldn't get into the throttle much. And honestly I wonder if the ECU is relearning things because the truck 'felt' different. The shift points don't seem the same and it wouldn't WOT every time I put the pedal down. While crawling through my neighborhood at 20 mph (trying to avoid the raspy noise) it felt like it was hunting between 1st and 2nd (which it never did before).

So what was going to be an expensive header job is now going to be more expensive... I really hope the dyno actually shows some positive results when this is all said and done.

EDIT: By the way - after initial start up post header install we noticed the ABS and Traction Control lights were both on. After restarting the truck 3 times the ABS light turned off. We unplugged my UltraGauge, restarted the truck, and the Traction Control light turned off. Plugged in the UG again and everything was fine. No lights on my 10 mile drive home.

@SonnyBones