ebay stainless 3.4l headers

In short: this was the worst project I have undertaken. Engine swap, rebuilding tcase, converting axle to discs, were all a cake walk in comparison. That said, if you only want to spend about $200 on your exhaust, the sound/power increase is much better than what you get spending the same amount on a magnaflow/flowmaster/borla.

The truck sounds much throatier and seems to have a bit more power across all RPMs. I'll post up more details when I get the chance.

 

holy crap man, did all your exhaust studs snap off in the block or somethin? what was the headache causer?

 

I had a hard time getting the sawzall in to cut the crossover. The headers also don't fit unless you unbolt the engine mounts and lift it 3"~ or so.

The worst part was that it was a huge pain to get all of tubing to bolt up. The fit was close but not perfect so I spent a lot of time prying and having to undo things to try putting it together in a different order. Also, one of the nuts/bolts on 2 separate connections were virtually impossible to tighten due to the way the tubing is bent. Im afraid it's going to start leaking at those connections but it isn't as far as I can tell now. I the only way I could figure you would be able to tighten them properly is to remove both heads. I will post up more info with pics once I have some free time to use the computer haha.

 

Never been a fan of ebay/china manifolds and exhaust. 1000 miles after the pretty polish goes away the cracks would start to develop. I use to charge customers a billion dollars to install an ebay header because I would have to screw up my expensive cobolt tips to enlarge the bolt holes or to modify the setup all together. Its hard to drill stainless flanges. I was a fan of stillen , JBA headers. Cost more but easier to install and americal made goodies.

 

Yeah I had some concerns about that but ultimately I didn't need to modify anything to make them fit.

We'll see how well they hold up in the future if they suck then I'll re evaluate haha

 

Just some geewiz info. Personally i prefer a mild steel header because it expands less and is less suseptical to cracking and they sound better.

 

Lucky that it actually bolted up. My set didn't even line up to connect the wye pipe to the RH header. Writing them off, shiny crap basically

 

consider it a bullet dodged, I have been fighting leaks at pretty much every connection.

 

I still can't believe there is that much of a quality discretion between the 1st gen and 2nd gen. mine are still goin strong, again I didn't have the cross over/ y pipe from them since I made my own and the only thing I needed to line up was the header flange/holes to the motor which they did and I can build boost now and stuff which is pretty fantasic btw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RpSQ-3db-4

 

Well I feel your pain on that score. I ended up finding a set of TRD headers at half price from a dealer in Washington last year and ended up installing them. Easy peasy in comparison to the DNA motors crap. I am still fighting getting a cat to connect between the trd and a borla exhaust, the TRD has the flange bolt holes at about 10 to 4 o’clock so finding a cat with moveable flanges has been interesting might have to use the cut off flange from the dna header and a-reducing clamp to make it all work. Love the sound of the borla at least until the exhaust leak at the front of the cat started, still not too bad.

 

I took mine to an exhaust shop and they welded a new flange on the downpipe and cat for like $100

 

Anyone have any long term review of the ebay headers?

 

considering the experiences had in this thread alone, I'd steer clear of them...save a little more $$ and get something reputable like Doug Thorley or JBA

 

Ive had them on my truck for over a year. Given all the issues ive had just spend the extra money for JBA or DT so you get a product that fits and comes with the hardware you need.

That said, even NA the truck has a bit more grunt (especially at 3k+ RPM) which is noticable going up mountain passes.

 

Just wanted to bump this thread and reiterate how shitty these are. DNA's customer support is also nonexistant

 

Ouch. Time for an upgrade?