Hey, everyone, just took a break for breakfast. It's noon and I've taken off the heat sheild and sprayed all the studs with penetrating oil.

Hopefully the process goes well, but we'll find out!

Tad bit of surface rust left on parts of the header (found it at junkyard totally thrashed, sanded it and painted it myself w/ header paint). I think the rust mught be the worst part of all this.

Wish me luck, I've got a week till I have to go back to work and my girlfriend's birthday's next week, so I've gotta get this done, hehe.

BTW, anyone run their car with an open header? Wouldn't the hot gas melt or ignite the undercoating? Just wondering.

good luck! as for your question i dont know.... maybe just coat it with heat resistant paint?

Ok, everythings off. There's bits of old gasket still on the manifold and the head. It's really siuck on there, but I don't want to gouge anything by going ape on it. Any advice for loostening these bits up?

Just shoot it with PB Blaster and scrape carefully with a putty knife to get the gasket remains off . As to the header , I just wire brushed it well and wiped it down with grease/wax remover and sprayed it with hi-temp header paint. So far it seems good , 1200 miles .

Took off the rest of the exhaust system, then through in the towel for the day (my gf showed up too, hehe).

Tomorrow after school I will resume the procedure. Might touch up the header with some "rust-mort" and some high temp paint, start putting it back together tomorrow.

BTW, used a stiff putty knife and some engine degreaser to get rid of the majority of the gunk.

Well, today I finished cleaning up the header and installed it with the new gasket. Also put the intake manifold back on. Tightened all the bolts. I hope I have no exhaust leaks when I start it up *crosses fingers*.

Tomorrow I will put the heat sheild back on, attach the exhaust hanger which mounts to the underside of the tranny, reconnect all the wires and hoses, and I'll be done. Then it's off to the exhaust shop for the rest.

It sounds like you are doing it right. I found an oem NOS exhaust manifold that I am installing. The down pipe that is on my car is warped at where the flange hooks up so I am having that fabricated. I was talking with someone today and they were saying the best way to do the exhaust is how you are doing it. Put the header or exhaust manifold on and have a mandrel bent exhaust done by a muffler shop. Keep us posted and show us some pictures as you move along with the project.

-Ben

I drove to the shop open header. Man did I make a scene on the 5 frwy

All done installing the header. It's SOOO LOUD!!

I can't drive it in town, I've gotta get it towed.

Wimp. I will drive mine down when I do it. Probably about 9:00 AM Saturday morning. If I just idle it around it won't be too loud.

Let those ponies roar man! You know you wanna!

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~alhoke/noflutter.wmv

I ran an open DOWNPIPE... I drive it around every day...

don't be a baby haha just playn man...