jwilhelm

Wow, this was a very intense but extremely whorthwhile endeavor. This project can be done in one's driveway, but you must have jack stands or better yet a set of ramps. Also, gotta have plenty of the right tools to get into the small "black hole" spaces. Good whether also helps. I chose to completely remove the battery on the passenger side for ease of access and sanity. Not really a big deal either. Here's some photos:

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Trmachuno

How do you like em so far? I know I love mine.

68XR7

What kind of problems did you encounter with the install? It looks pretty straight forward. I understand that there isn't a lot of difference between the shorties and the stock exhaust manifold. What is your impression. What differences are apparent?

banka87

Pain the *** right?

Well worth it though.

I actually didn't have a problem with the passenger side. The drivers side sucked bad for me.

Sancho805

thanks for the pics!.....hopefully i can get a pair in a few more months.

Brumby

JBA shorty header.....those do not look line stainless steel....stainless make for a good presentation.....

Torch_Vert

Those are ceramic coated.... "stainless make for a good presentation"? Of what? A science demo of how corrosion and discoloration occur?

Ceramic is the way to go...

Sancho805

hahaha

NeoV6

Did you notice any increase in horsepower/performance?

jwilhelm

Didn't quite expect this big of a response to the header install, thank you all very much. To answer some of the questions above. First, don't do what I did and start a project like this on your Monday holiday day off (Veteren's Day). Sue had to work, so it was just me and Kali. Pappillionsreally don't provide much help when installing headers. I chose to do the passenger side first, and yes, it did prove to be the easiest to install, especially having made the very wise decision to remove the entire battery assembly for incredible access to this side of the engine. Again putting the car up on my ramps also proved to be very helpful for access underneath from below. I also removed the cat/y-pipe completely from below and moved it back under the car, again for good access from below. I know this is a lot of extra work, but what a difference it made when time to tightening things up, especially on the driver's side install. I've also installed a B&M front tubular K-frame and A-arms which too proved to bepriceless when working from underneath. It was almost like not have a frame under the car access was so good. The only glitch to putting on the passenger's side header is make sure you put your new header gasket on in the correct orientation. Remember how the factory gasket came off (a incredible note on this item in a moment). Also, there are the "2 bolts," one large one and one not so large, that hold on some plumbing above the header. Make sure you take these bolts out before reassembly everything. Reusing these two bolts is no problem. They're both long enough to reassemble with the thick JBA header flanges. I had to reassemble about three times before getting it right, dah! Important note, get a set of replacement factory header gaskets from a Ford dealership. You won't regret this expense one ioda. I started the project about 830 am this past Monday morning, got the passenger side finished about 1130 am. Then did a couple xen moments to prepare my mind for the nightmare driver's side endeavor. There's a lot of wiring and plumbing on this side which you should becarefully unhooked and "gotten outta the way." I use that pretty blue masking tape to hold things in nice outta the way positions. Stay with the stock header studs and nuts, these work beautiful for the install. No need to extract them with that stupid E7 torsc whatever and replace with new "header bolts." That's just plain bulls--t! Removing and replacing the oil dip stick with the assembly proved to be no real big deal, as well as the undoing and reinstallation of the coil box assembly. JBA has done a beautiful job of supplying you with a neat little kit of pieces to extend the coil box outward from its original position to compensate for the thickness of the header flange. This part of the reassembly just take patients. You can use the "big bolt" at the rear of the head to reinstall the coil box mount, but here's one of the pain in the *** moments with this install where you will have to get a larger M8 metric bolt to replace the smaller bolt that helps to hold the coil box to the head where it bolts over the header flange. But still no real big deal. Installing the header on the driver's side is a pain in the *** when having to tighten up the bolts. The very back bolt again the fire wall had to be tightened from underneath, but with all my room it wasn't to much of a problem. The top bolt on number 6 cylinder is so close to the header pipe that the only way to tighten it was very slowly with an open ended wrench. No problem, but it took forever with about one 1/4 turn on every effort. Remember earlier when I said there was a major note I would speak to about the driver's side install, well here it is. I had the whole job finished on the driver's side and was beginning to put the spark plug wires back on when I discovered that I put the header gasket on up side down. OH SH-T! Yes, up side down! There was no way in hell I could get the plug boots on the spark plugs. I had to completely disassemble everything, install the gasket correctly, and reassemble the whole damn mess. Talk about making myself the king of morons, that little number won't be forgotten for years to come. But yes, everything is finished now and helping the Mustang breath fire once again. Yes I did notice a very nice increase in throttle response and get up and go. With my straight through exhaust system I've noticed a definite deeper, throatier sound, V8ish. Was it worth it, YES. The ceramic version of the headersis the way to go, they look great. Here's a couple more photos, one is me and Kali. Jack

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