Riptide

This assumes it's much of a bottleneck to begin with, which it isn't. I'm sure 1 3/4 would help I just question whether it helps much, if at all, at low boost levels.

I'd be curious to hear what brenspeed has to say.

timmbo

Well spent another 2.5 hours on the car tonight which brings my labor hrs to a total of 8 so far. Got the headers mounted, engine back down and all accessories connected. All I lack is putting the H pipe together and hooking the 02 sensors up. Speaking of, the damn 02 extention that I received for the passenger front sensor has a connector on it that will not mate properly for the front 02 sensor. Must be a rear 02 extension because the tabs line up on the sockets perfectly for the rear sensors. Hell if thats all thats holding me up I will just cut, splice and solder my own extention. However, I will make a call to Brenspeed to see whats up with that anyway.

A few remarks. The starter has plenty of room around the header area. I had to manipulate the oil dipstick tube a little to keep it from contacting one of the header pipes. You also have to bend the mount tab on the dipstick tube towards then engine a little to bolt it up. No major deal. Then there is a heatshield above the LCA bushing on the passenger side that the header is almost touching. Again, no big deal. Just stuck a screwdriver between the shield and header and pushed/bent the heatshield away from the header. Tomorrow I assemble and mount the H pipe. But so far I'm very impressed on how these headers fit.

need4speed17n

i have the pypes from Brenspeed... trust me they look nearly identical to the Kooks, and for how much cheaper they are, there's not much reason to spend the extra money.

S197steve

Looks are one thing, performance and durability are another. We know the proven gains of the Kooks system, I'd be very interested to see if the Pypes will yield similar results while also providing the same long term quality of Kooks.

I hope they do, because if so then LTs may have jumped a few notches up my mod list. :-)

timmbo

Ok success! Got the H pipe assembled last night. Bolted it up to the headers and over the axle pipes and fired her up. Sounds awesome! I had to do a few heat cycles though and go back and tighten the band clamps at the H pipe but that was about it. Snugged up the headers but they didn't require much retorqing at all. After that I couldn't find any obvious major leaks which give that telltale "pist-pist-pist-pist" noise. I was surprised I could get to all the fasteners with the engine mounts mostly in the way. With my cams you can sure hear the exhaust banging around in those headers. Sounds very cool. As for the O2 sensor extention I received it was for rear sensors and it was a freebie. But all I had to do per Brenspeed was snip off those little tabs on the connectors and it worked perfectly as a front 02 extention so that was good.

Total hours I spent on the install came to 10.5 hrs. I feel confident that if I had to do it again I could easily shave off at least two hours.

I gotta say, quality for the dollar you can't beat the price of 679.00 for the headers and H pipe. I'm glad I didn't spend double that. Just no reason to. These seem well made and were not aggravating to install. Just time consuming. I won't be able to get a video or even test drive the car. We've got a major snow storm coming. When it clears up, I will post a vid sometime next week I promise.

Well I hope anyone interested in purchasing these headers found this thread useful.

S197steve

It's very helpful and interesting thread timmbo, thanks for sharing all your insights.

Do you plan on putting her on the dyno to see what sort of HP gains you got with these headers? Do you know what you're putting to the ground now?

timmbo

Thanks. Yes, in the spring I plan on taking a trip to Dynospeed in Memphis which is 3 hours from me. Works out well because the girlfriend wants to go to Graceland. They have a great reputation and a nice facility. They have done a ton of Mustangs and have been around for years. However, I'd go to Brenspeed in a heartbeat but they are over 8 hrs away and I go over like a bratty 5 year old when traveling long distances in the car lol.

From reading posts from others with similar mods as mine I'd guesstimate I'm putting 315-330 to the tires. Of course I don't really know yet. All I do know is that before when it was stock I could bark second. Now with all my mods in my sig I'm roasting second trying to keep the car straight and barking third gear. The car is just flat out a blast to drive now.

hammeron

awesome timmbo! sure would love to hear this
beast.

it would be nice if you could just get over to
a local shop and do a couple dyno pulls, just
to see where you are and to get a look at the
a/f and torque curve.

BRENSPEED

Glad the install went well. The pypes headers are very sweet and glad you had no issues.

loudnlow

Awesome man congrats