ebay header install

J

jolimojo

Member
OK! soo I received my ebay (obx style) header and intake kit today. I already put the intake on, and it has a more noticeable grunt when you hit the throttle, however, it is pushed up against the brake fluid reservoir and I can feel it rumble and vibrate through the pedals inside the car. It scared me at first because I thought something had broken (you can also feel it as you start up the car: a harsh sounding shudder especially through the pedals though) other than that I think it's ok so far.

Now for the header. Anything I should look out for on installation? Is there a DIY laid out anywhere? (and yes I have checked the search function and also did a quick Google search and didn't really find much) I am worried about the spring bolts I will have to remove... I'm afraid they might now come out very easily, however I have not test fit anything at all so I'm not even fully sure it will fit right! I am going to give it a degreaser cleaning and I might even take a dremel to the exhaust ports, they don't seem to be very neat and form fitting, the metal kind of overlaps into the airflow of the port so I am still considering smoothing that out a bit. Still have to get the non-fouler but that is no biggie.

Also, I looked at the manual and wanted to make sure of this. It looks like the header bolts should be 14-16 ft. lbs. and the spring bolts should be 28-38 ft. lbs. Does that seem right to everyone?

I'm also still considering a coating/wrap, I'm more geared towards the wrap just for the looks! I think it would look pretty good and I wouldn't need a lot of it, there isn't a whole lot of piping to cover.

thanks for any info on the subject in advance!
 
Hey man I put in an ebay intake and it made it much nicer, then I put in my ebay header and it just sounded like a freaking riced out civic. Idk I just hated it, it sounded almost like a dirt bike, but it's really up to your personal preference. I think the only reason it sounds so loud is cause it removes the first cat. But anyways what I did with my header was put in this internal exhaust coating, I bought it off the int for like 15 bucks and it holds up to like 1500 degrees. This way it really holds in a lot of heat and doesnt let out heat into the engine bay, plus it looks a lot better than that stupid wrap stuff. Anyways if you still want a header I can sell you mine, its coated already and everything. Drove it for 2 miles an took it right back off. As for the removal process youll need a 10mm, 12mm , and 14mm with a short head 12mm to reach i think a tight clamp thing that holds the primary cat to the body. Thats the one thing I didnt really notice. Otherwise its a fairly simple install, took about 2.5 hours my first time.
 
If you had a car back on I could see that but if it was the stock exhaust it won't be that loud unless its leaking
 
kosteniuks17: I agree with Tweety. Unless you're being extremely hyperbolic about your description on sound volume, it shouldn't be that loud, especially if it's due to the removal of the first cat. I gutted out my first cat, and the car sounds almost exactly the same. This is because you have another cat, a resonator, AND quiet muffler. In fact, after a few days, I couldn't tell I difference in sound anymore. The ebay header should sound a little different since (I'm assuming) it has larger diameter piping, but should sound far far away from a dirt bike.

mojo: As someone who is a noob at doing his own mechanical work, removing and replacing the headers were fairly easy. Took about 2 hours. The spring loaded bolts don't bite, and are easy to remove. The only thing that would make it difficult is if the bolts were seized/rusted. I just used PB Blaster if that was the case. You'll probably have to use PB blaster/penetrating oil on the bolts that connect the header to the block. Assuming that the ebay header fits, it should be easy/easy-moderate difficulty level in my opinion.

As for the torque specs, I just did my best to "match" the torque I used to unscrew the bolts to bolt them back in. Worked just fine. Did the same on my wife's Civic (her headers were cracked) and worked just fine. I would be more concerned with torque specs if you were doing like a head gasket job, but this isn't the case. Just make sure you bolt the engine side bolts back on starting with the center bolts to be safe, ie fastening the two center bolts then radiating out to the edges. I think theMAN did a thread on this, with torque specs as well. Try searching for his thread.
 
They have to be tight but not too tight or you'll strip the threads as the head is aluminum, I just used my index finger to tighten it and it worked fine for me
 
ok, so I have it installed but i'm 100% sure there is an exhaust leak as it has the sound you guys are describing and is obnoxiously loud, especially with your foot down in it and I think it's right at the spring bolts and here is a pic (it actually turned gold after heating up! is that normal for this? I cleaned it alright before installing, and after installing right before I started it up):

201132_4355067232421_87285941_o.jpg

and here is what went down:

so after spending all morning messing with this thing (bruises and bleeding skin to prove it) I finally got the stock exhaust manifold off and realized just how very heavy that thing is! I didn't realize the weight savings. anyway, it was a fight the whole way through. anyway....

Just to be sure, I shot a tiny bit of PB blaster on the manifold bolts and a more hefty amount on the spring bolts (they were pretty rusted) and i let those sit till I could get the manifold bolts off and other things out of the way. Ended up having to fight this bracket holding the mid section of the stock mani on, so after removing that annoying bracket (first taking just the bolt off from the side thinking I could just slide the mani out from the side, that didn't work, so i had to go underneath and take out the entire bracket), mani bolts i went to work on the spring bolts. The one on the left side wasn't too difficult, I broke that loose by straddling the passenger side tire for leverage and using my foot to push the wrench and it came off in 3 pieces: the spring, nut, and washer. (i'm sure this was an interesting site: a guy holding onto dear life to a tire with a strained look on his face followed by an "ahhhh..." as the bolt clicked free and certain precious goods were crushed against the tire side wall..........). the other one 'seemed' to come off with little trouble too, untill i realized that on the second one (the right one) the entire stud came out, so I was holding 4 pieces: the whole stud, the spring, nut, and washer. At first I cursed the fact of rust existing, that was then followed by the realization of a possibly ruined day. I'm not sure if it's supposed to come completely off like that as nothing actually looked broken or stripped or anything, but it definitely seemed wrong. But back to this later...

I moved on to getting the rest of the stock parts out. I started to fight with the 6 nuts holding the top part of the mani onto the pre-cat. Once again they 'seemed' to come out just fine after cracking loose, but after taking off the top part i realized the gasket was in two pieces and i'm not sure if it was me that broke it or it was already in bad shape. So now I can pull out the rest of the assembly by just fishing it through the bottom. Yay! stock parts off and brand new shiny header to go in, I noticed the header gasket mating surface was dirty, really dirty acutally so I cleaned that off, slid on the new gasket (which didn't seem to be very cheap to me...), picked up the header to slide it in aaaaaaanndddd *clunk* it doesn't fit all the way down. Immediately I'm like "geez... all that work for nothing" so I tried different angles, more force and nothing, then I realized I could just take out the fan shroud with two little 10mm bolts, and it was just enough room to fit down *whew* So after successfully getting it in I get excited realizing I'm actually doing some cool work on my little P5 and I was proud of myself for a minute, until I started fighting with the midpipe, which has become the bane of my life right now! Also, the egr bung does not line up witht the egr pipe that is supposed to connect to it, the pipe sits about 1/2-3/4 inch back and will not swing forward enough to fit over the bung on the header, so i just blocked it off with a bolt for now until I can figure out something to do with that...(which will probably be nothing...) After feeding the header down I had to lift up the midpipe to get the one spring-bolt-stud that was still attached, to go through the bolt hole in the header, then I started playing around with the configurations of the spring bolts as I couldn't remember exactly how they went together. I wasted time doing that then after finally figuring out how they go back on I see that the hole for the second spring bolt (the right one) didn't nearly line up with the first hole (the left one)!! So I can slide through and tighten down the first bolt, but I can't insert the second one. So at this point I'm a little frustrated because I can't move or angle any pipe enough to make the holes line up, so after fighting with it for around an hour, I ended up just tightening down the one good side and just left the other side. I'm sure the leak is coming directly from that area from the uneven pressure on the midpipe from the spring bolt.

after getting home from work I re-tightened the bolts on the front of the header, as they were all loose and some not even finger tight. But while doing that I realized there wasn't a gasket between the midpipe and the header and was wondering if having that there (even with only one spring bolt) would fix the exhaust leak. But i took a quick look at Rockauto and I'm gonna go ahead and order a spring bolt set to fix the bad one (comes with the stud, spring, and nut). However, to actually fix the leak, I may have to take it somewhere to drill out a larger hole on the midpipe so the stud can actually go through!

Soooooo what I hope to accomplish very soon: get the midpipe drilled though, get the exhaust hardware and gasket to fix the leak (hopefully this will get rid of the ricey/leaky-exhaust sound..) after putting that on I should have a gasket on the header so it will mate nicely up to the midpipe, and a 'good' spring-bolt in place of the currently non-existent bad one, get the non-fouler and install it to rid one of the CELs, and maybe even get some header wrap as I'm still considering that too.

overall the actual work wasn't too bad, it was just those annoyances that ate up time, as I think i was out there for about 4 hours.......
 
Wow sounds a lot harder than what I thought it could be... Makes me wonder if I should get an eBay header or not..

What is the difference between an oem header and for example an obx one? Other than the looks and the weight of it.
 
Did you put the right gasket in where the spring bolts are? The oem one you took out and the one supplied with the header were probly different. Just run your hand around the entire area, you should be able to feel where it's coming from
 
tweety2300 said:
Did you put the right gasket in where the spring bolts are? The oem one you took out and the one supplied with the header were probly different. Just run your hand around the entire area, you should be able to feel where it's coming from
Click to expand...
(iagree)
When you took off the original J pipe there should have been a donut gasket around it, It can be reused but good luck getting it off in one piece. As far as i can remember the OBX header comes with only one gasket, the donut gasket will have to be purchased at a parts store. So I am guessing you don't have a gasket where the header meets the rest of the exhaust and that is where your "Dirt bike sound" is coming from. I would have connected the EGR pipe before you bolted the header down.


Here is a picture of what you need.
2599B_WEBL.jpg
 
Last edited:
^+1 above. Given that you didn't get rid of your OEM midpipe, this "donut" gasket should still be attached to it. This should get rid of your leak and line everything up. As for the EGR not fitting - I guess that's ebay headers for you.

You can search for another thread here using a gas line you can get from a hardware store to replace your inflexible EGR pipe with a flexible gas line. This is what seems to be the popular solution for custom header installs, which is probably what your application is, because it doesn't fit :) Or you can keep that header EGR bung blocked off with a bolt, but you should at least get rid of your EGR pipe and replace a little breather air filter at where the EGR valve is (intake manifold side). With your current setup, you can potentially be sucking in dirty unfiltered air in. Either solution will probably require you to remove at least your throttle body, possible the whole manifold. I think you could pull it off with just taking off the throttle body if you have the right tools, but I digress... maybe for now you can just get a little breather filter and jimmy rig it to the end of your EGR pipe :)

Also, it's supposed to change colors. That's what stainless steel headers do :) Some people like the look.

For future jobs, I would recommend putting a wood block on your hydraulic car jack (hope you have access to one) and using that to hold up the header for an extra pair of hands until you have the header secured from the manifold side. In my experience, putting removing the headers were easiest going from UNDER the vehicle with it lifted up.
 
@bigpturgeon: correct, I didn't realize there was a gasket attached to the j-pipe still as it all looked like one piece! I just went out and looked at it and it is firmly on there, any prying to try and get it off and you just flake it to bits, so I'm supposing definitely order another one of those xD hopefully that one gasket will fix the leak, because I hate the sound right now it's almost embarrassing...

@lostmybook: don't get me wrong, I love that golden look! :D it just took me by surprise.

well i'm ordering the parts right after posting this, hopefully they get here soon because I want to fix that sound!
 
yeah, as mentioned...just a header will barely make a difference in engine tone. What to watch out for is head-back catless exhausts without a resonator...those generally sound pretty ridiculous.

I have a Mazdaspeed familia JDM 4-2-1 with a Racing Beat cat-back...which does have a pretty baffled muffler and a resonator, as well as thick walled stainless construction. I've switched between a cat-less test pipe, and the factory mid pip with a catalyst (which needed to be custom cut to fit with this specific header, as its nearly a foot longer than any domestic header systems available)...even completely cat-less, there isn't some night and day difference in sound...I notice some more low rpm rumble, but cruising drone and high rpm isn't a whole lot different than just having a cat-back. The cat-back itself is what will make the biggest difference in sound. Just a cheap bolt on muffler (as i don't think there is a factory resonator on proteges, but its been like 8 years since i replaced mine)...and you'll quickly make a nightmare...
 
jolimojo said:
@bigpturgeon: correct, I didn't realize there was a gasket attached to the j-pipe still as it all looked like one piece! I just went out and looked at it and it is firmly on there, any prying to try and get it off and you just flake it to bits, so I'm supposing definitely order another one of those xD hopefully that one gasket will fix the leak, because I hate the sound right now it's almost embarrassing...

@lostmybook: don't get me wrong, I love that golden look! :D it just took me by surprise.

well i'm ordering the parts right after posting this, hopefully they get here soon because I want to fix that sound!
Click to expand...

It is embarrassing and i guarantee once you get the gasket it will go away.
 
jolimojo said:
OK! soo I received my ebay (obx style) header and intake kit today. I already put the intake on, and it has a more noticeable grunt when you hit the throttle, however, it is pushed up against the brake fluid reservoir and I can feel it rumble and vibrate through the pedals inside the car. It scared me at first because I thought something had broken (you can also feel it as you start up the car: a harsh sounding shudder especially through the pedals though) other than that I think it's ok so far.
Click to expand...

Tweak the parts some more until you can clear the master cylinder. All that rattling that you think is "ok so far" will wear a hole through the cheap cast aluminum that most eBay intakes use. You can try cutting the first silicone piece until the elbow is almost flush with the throttle body to gain more clearance. Most eBay intakes use cast elbows that are made to (hopefully) fit many different cars. Intakes made for the Protege will have tighter cast elbows or a silicone elbow to clear the master. Excessive rattling between the intake and master can also be caused by worn motor mounts.
 
Installshield 2 said:
yeah, as mentioned...just a header will barely make a difference in engine tone. What to watch out for is head-back catless exhausts without a resonator...those generally sound pretty ridiculous.

I have a Mazdaspeed familia JDM 4-2-1 with a Racing Beat cat-back...which does have a pretty baffled muffler and a resonator, as well as thick walled stainless construction. I've switched between a cat-less test pipe, and the factory mid pip with a catalyst (which needed to be custom cut to fit with this specific header, as its nearly a foot longer than any domestic header systems available)...even completely cat-less, there isn't some night and day difference in sound...I notice some more low rpm rumble, but cruising drone and high rpm isn't a whole lot different than just having a cat-back. The cat-back itself is what will make the biggest difference in sound. Just a cheap bolt on muffler (as i don't think there is a factory resonator on proteges, but its been like 8 years since i replaced mine)...and you'll quickly make a nightmare...
Click to expand...


Assuming the mp3 only got a racing beat axle back they do have a resonator stock, and considering from the header to the axle back portion is rusted and the axle back looks new I'd say they only got the axle back.

All cars are different as I had a similar setup as you on my Honda and it was really loud. Only difference was I had a cheap thrust muffler but a huge resonator
 
jolimojo said:
@bigpturgeon: correct, I didn't realize there was a gasket attached to the j-pipe still as it all looked like one piece! I just went out and looked at it and it is firmly on there, any prying to try and get it off and you just flake it to bits, so I'm supposing definitely order another one of those xD hopefully that one gasket will fix the leak, because I hate the sound right now it's almost embarrassing
Click to expand...

Are you sure you can't get the donut gasket out without damaging it? I know all cars are different, but on my wife's Civic, it came off pretty easily. Maybe I had to take a flathead screw driver and gently hammer it off, but I don't remember any difficulties. Pretty sure I just took it off by hand... Try letting some PB Blaster or penetrating oil sit on it for a while; it couldn't hurt. You'll save money and waiting on the parts. And you can fix that leak once and for all.
 
the order has been processed! ordered a set of new spring bolts and got some extra nuts just in case (never hurts to have some extra!), and got the midpipe gasket. about $23.50 total w/ shipping.

ahhh.. I have been thinking i've had worn motor mounts.

One symptom i've noticed now that it is cold, is when i floor it from low speed in first gear (usually while cold) there will be a clunk from inside the engine bay and that scared me at first thinking it was the tranny shifting hard or bogging or something, but i've realized now it is probably a bad mount(s).

How cheap can we get some motor mounts? and are they hard to put in? I've read in a few places now that the rear one is the one hard to change. Although, I've never changed any kind of motor mount so for me they may all be hard to change!

@008: I will try looking at the intake again to see what I could do to fix it touching the master cylinder. To even get the MAF sensor to fit the couplings that came with it, I had to heat up the coupler (weirdly, only the one closest to the air filter end) so i could stretch it over the MAF and then tighten it down after I stretched the rubber over the plastic MAF! I put the coupling on my corolla's engine as it was running to heat it up (i kept checking for malleability and how hot it was getting) I finally got it hot enough to stretch over, I thought it was a good solution though.

@tweety: other than the header that is on, the only other exhuast piece I have is an MSP muffler (by racing beat) it is the one that comes stock on MSPs, and I love the low rumble on it.

@lostmybook: yeah, i tried. It was cooked on there, very flaky and just eroded. I just put in the order this morning anyway, can't wait though! :D

on a side note... I've noticed better mileage with the cold, by like 50 miles/tank on my last one! I was quite amazed actually, haven't had it fluctuate by that much. (this was before the intake and header) just thought that was weird news.
 
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