Speed Engineering headers installed, with pics, and questions!

[NC_SS]

Alright first of all I made probably a ton of mistakes, and it took me around 5 hours being a complete noob at this sort of thing. I'll save my questions for later in the OP though, so here is some pics

start:

Very surprised at how clean my intake tube was, and my MAF

Now the spark plug wires, which on the passenger side is a pain in the ass

Guess who's making a trip to autozone....

Atleast it's done, enough bruised knuckles and swear words for a lifetime.

Out with the old, in with the new!

And there we have it folks


First bit of commentary will be, HAVE AIR POWERED TOOLS OR ANY POWERED TOOLS READILY AVAILABLE. I am at 56K, and while getting my stock manifold bolts broke loose was easy, you couldn't exactly unscrew them by hand after that. So I did this in my dads garage, who has a 150 PSI husky air compressor which is handy because using power tools made this go by so much faster than it otherwise would have once I figured out what I was doing. It's too dark to check the steering column, but on the driver side my LH header seemed to clear it by a hair. My 2012 has a boot over the knuckle though, so it's probably not as -close- as it seems.

Now, I was in a rush to see how the car would sound, and didn't......exactly put everything back together. I forgot to plug in my MAF sensor, annnnddd a spark plug wire. So start it up, and I have a billion lights. I thought I owned a Chevy not a VW??? So I figure this might be normal not knowing what I skipped over initially and took it down the road. On 7 cylinders and an ECU that couldn't tell how much air it was getting it sounded SUPER good. On the way back I noticed something very wrong, it didn't seem noticeable at first but after 2 minutes it was apparent I wasn't hitting on all cylinders. So we head back, it actually sounds and feels like it has a big loping idle LOL. Dad was like that doesn't sound healthy, we pop the hood and what do ya know cylinder #1's ignition wire was dangling not even plugged into the spark plug . So with that solved dad pointed out something else was dangling, plugged in my MAF sensor and took it back out for a test drive. Mom said she could hear me for a few miles before my exhaust faded which is mega cool

So now my questions, if you want a tl;dr I made laughable mistakes and made my car run funny lol.

First question, at low RPM's I hear a lot of noise coming from these headers. Like it sounds like I'm hearing it everytime it the exhaust stroke happens, which isn't bad and seemed less noticeable as the day went on, but is this normal? Also my new spark plug wires touch my new longtubes on the LH side but not the RH and what sense does that make? Other than that it is a BLAST, the car doesn't feel a whole lot different on the pulls I've made but I'm not tuned yet. However it is very, very loud, and at the same time very tame at cruise.

It's working well though, leaving the movies with my wife tonight I got on it in 2nd, and watched some cars headlights just get smaller and smaller in my rear view. 5 seconds later as I'm at highway speed cruising a Mustang GT performs a full blown ricer flyby which made me laugh

[NC_SS]

Oh also is the smell of fuel gonna be a thing now being catless and what not?

It's nothing bad like smelling it in the cabin, but when I backed into my driveway I could smell a whiff of it as I got out of the car.

[2010reddevil]

If you can't maneuver those plug wires around to where they don't touch, get some plug boot protectors from Summit etc and that will keep them safe. Once you get tuned, it will be a huge difference. Remeber to check the bolts after a couple of days of driving and once more after a week. Enjoy the newfound power!

[christianchevell]

The reported type writer sound is normal for our cars engines due to the roller lifters and only becomes much more noticeable with: headers, removing the engine cover, and especially a cam. And yes you will be stinkier without cats which are required to be inside the Law.... and BTW running richer from the fuel tables trying to make up for the improved flow and etc.....

[NC_SS]

Originally Posted by 2010reddevil

If you can't maneuver those plug wires around to where they don't touch, get some plug boot protectors from Summit etc and that will keep them safe. Once you get tuned, it will be a huge difference. Remeber to check the bolts after a couple of days of driving and once more after a week. Enjoy the newfound power!

Will do! Just making sure everything is okie dokie1

Man is it loud lol

[havelegs]

You'll hear the valve train a lot more. I thought I had an exhaust leak but everything was tight and the tuner said if was just the way headers are.

[NC_SS]

Originally Posted by havelegs

You'll hear the valve train a lot more. I thought I had an exhaust leak but everything was tight and the tuner said if was just the way headers are.

Yea initially what I was worried about

I ran them in with a air powered torque gun, idk what the torque specs are but I ran them in snug with some good ole fashion elbow grease too so I wasn't sure if it was valvetrain or exhaust leaks

Sounds sort of like old carb'd small block Chevy's my dad has owned

[keith.wilkinson.10]

Let's hear it OP

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

[NC_SS]

Here is your video!

[Bauer2]

Congrats on the install Yep that's all pretty much normal.

[68rssscamaro]

Nice job, sounds awesome!

[NC_SS]

I might do some flyby videos to see how it sounds at full chat because honestly I feel bad for my neighbors if I rev it too much lol

[havelegs]

Originally Posted by NC_SS

Yea initially what I was worried about

I ran them in with a air powered torque gun, idk what the torque specs are but I ran them in snug with some good ole fashion elbow grease too so I wasn't sure if it was valvetrain or exhaust leaks

Sounds sort of like old carb'd small block Chevy's my dad has owned

18 ft lbs lol. Lucky you didn't break a bolt

[NC_SS]

Originally Posted by havelegs

18 ft lbs lol. Lucky you didn't break a bolt

whoops

and it's up to 50 and I didn't fiddle with it out of the box. Soooo, who knows what it actually is lol