so I got my headers on with relatively few problems, but it took an
embarrassingly long time - on the order of about 8 hours of nearly
constant work. Two things really slowed me down - one of the y-pipe
flange bolts refused to budge and I had to dremel it off, and none of
the 4 bolt heads were a real size. I think the main problem with the
one that refused to budge is that due to the oil filter I couldn't get
a good grip on it with the crescent wrench. Once I got a
well-tightened crescent on the other three bolts (a real exercise in
pain tolerance for the rear bolt on the passenger side) I was able to
loosen them and the rest went pretty smoothly. for those interested,
here's a blow-by-blow:
at around noon I headed out to the lot to start work. the first thing
I did was give everything I could get at a very health squirt of WD40.
Then I got my tools accessible, and pulled off my K&N FPIK.
I started on the manifold removal by pulling off the heat shields.
Their mounting points are actually studs that have multiple nuts on
them. on 3 out of 4, the nuts came off and the remaining nut stuck on
the stud and the whole thing came out.
I was then able to see the rest of the mounting points, and soaked them
down, too. Rather than do the smart thing and immediately move from
this point to the y pipe flanges, I continued on the easier path of
continuing on removal of the manifold bolts.
Once I'd removed all but one mounting bolt/stud on each side removed I
went on to the flanges. The bolt I started with was the absolute
hardest - the front on the passenger side. The first - and most
frustrating - thing I found was that the bolt heads were a size that
does not exist. neither 13mm nor 1/2" would go on, and 14mm and 9/16"
were both much too large. and no, they were not notably rusted or
dirty. the scale on my crescent wrench put them at about 13.3mm or a
hair smaller than 17/32". I was unable to get my crescent on the
front passenger bolt, even with anne's help, so I resorted to getting
my dremel to cut it off. that took about an hour or so to do since I
can't run my dremel at full speed or full load on my 140 watt inverter.
I started cutting on the second passenger side bolt, but couldn't see
well enough to do much of anything, so I moved on to the driver's side.
Over there, I had massively much more room, and I was able to get
easily to the other side of the flange, and I was able to take it
apart. I then pulled off the driver's side manifold, which came out
very smoothly.
I navigated the header into place, and very loosely installed the front
and rearmost bolts, intending to navigate the gasket between the header
and block, since that's technically how it's suppose to work. I put a
small bead of ultra copper around the exhaust ports on both sides of
the gasket, and began navigating it into place. I immediately realized
that without pulling all the plug wires that this would be a hopeless
proposition. Since I didn't have any means of marking them on me at
the time, I decided that wasn't the way to go. I pulled off the front
bolt so I had more room to work, and then succeeded in getting the
gasket in place. Then I got all the bolts loosely in place, and then
began tightening them. Half the bolts are a severe pain just due to
tight tolerances, but with a LOT of patience and an open end 7/16" I
got everything nice and tight.
The next thing I noticed was how piss poor my plug wire routing was
when the heat of the headers were concerned, since the back two plugs'
wires were actually in contact with the headers. I then rerouted the
plug wires in the valley on the high side of the valve covers, so they
run across the valve covers straight to the plugs, and avoiding the
headers' heat entirely.
I then moved back on to the passenger side, and found a means of
getting a wrench on top of the flange by working my arm up through the
small open space at the inner bottom of the fender well, and avoiding
mutilating myself on the heat shield on the firewall. it would have
been so much easier without the damn frame in the way....
so once I got that flange loose, I removed the last nut from the last
passenger side stud and cursed the fact that this nut didn't stick to
the stud. I couldn't navigate the manifold out around the stud, so I
got to removing. I sprayed down the stud's threads at the block, and
attempted to tighten two nuts against each other to remove the stud. I
had previously thought that these nuts were 1/2", but as I attempted to
jam them together as tightly as I could, I discovered that they were in
fact 12mm. Thankfully I didn't strip them when my wrenches slipped.
It took 3 or 4 tries to get them tight enough against each other that
the stud started to move, and it fought me all the way out.
I then navigated the manifold out through the various a/c lines and
everything else that was in the way on that side and got it clear.
Trying to put the header in was far more trying - since it was so much
larger, I had problems clearing the a/c lines, the plug wires, and even
the frame (the down tube on the passenger side is far longer than the
driver's side). Even though it appears that there should be so much
more room on the passenger side, both on the bottom and the top it's
far more crowded.
Once I got the header in, I followed the same procedure as the driver's
side with regard to the gasket and the tightening.
JBA's well-done instructions mentioned that the Y-pipe often is
distorted through repeated heating and cooling, so I was a little
worried what I'd find when I went back under the truck, but it ended up
lining up perfectly right off the bat. I stuck the new bolts through
the headers, into the flanges on the Y pipe, cinched them down, and all
was kosher. rinse, and repeat on the passenger side. This was made
far, far easier by the fact that the new bolts were a real size, and I
could use a real wrench on top of them.
Since cinching down the Y pipe took so long, I figured the sealant
would have had enough time to set up, so I started her up. I was
immediately worried about the smoke pouring from the left side of the
truck, but a quick flashlight-based investigation revealed that it was
WD40 burning off from under the heat shield at the bottom corner of the
y-pipe. There is also a nice little rumble at idle that wasn't there
before =)
I let the headers heat up as I cleaned up my tools before I headed in
for dinner. it was also pretty nifty to watch the pipe turn golden
from the heat moving from the block down each of the pipes. After
dinner I came back out and tightened bolts again, and then went for a
drive. I'll check them again before I leave for Lebanon Valley.
Of course, I am left with a few worries. My plug wires are now in even
closer contact with each other now than they had been, which is bad,
and I pinched a few on the passenger side quite thoroughly, which is
also bad. also, when I took off my K&N, I found some very bad news in
the form of a decent amount of mud on top of my throttle body. Clearly
the air hat had not been on tightly enough while I was at Jon's. I
wiped that out as best I could (mud on top, mud on the butterflies, mud
down into the TB passages), and became *very* thankful that I only
still only burn a quart every 3k or so considering how much mud then
engine probably ingested.
In my late night drive around Rochester last night, I was very pleased
to see an improvement in butt dyno ratings. I use less throttle to
drive like I usually do, and I seem to have quite a bit more at the top
end. Since it seems there will be few other - if any - DMLers to want
to BS with this weekend I think I'll see just how well I can do now. I
think it's reasonable to expect that with a PCM reprogram, a set of
headers and my K&N that I'll make up for the extra weight of my topper
;-) it really is too bad I don't have any base numbers though.
So I've got my headers on. I've got my new door switch put in. I have
a Roadmaster setup on it's way, a desire to put in a big center
console, a skid plate to mount (maybe with a side order of
straightening a torsion bar crossmember) and wiring and mounting of
motors to do for my power rear windows.
-- Michael Maskalans '98 Dakota SLT CC 4x4 318 details here: <http://mike.tepidcola.com/dak.html> mobile.612.618.4652 campus.585.274.2246 fax.954.697.0487
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 06 2004 - 11:47:00 EST