This header comes from a brand name company that starts with a B. I have less than 500km on this header. Maybe this break is my fault, I am not running spring bolts. I thought that would be ok since I have solid mounts and the engine harldy moves. I also bottomed out one time and dented the downpipe. Maybe that put stress on the upper tubes.

In any case, this sucks for a $700 header. I going to weld it back together tho and keep running it.

 

Damn that sucks

 

Not running spring bolts and bottoming out a header can certainly cause a crack like that to happen.

 

yeah. Im a dummie. Still though, I'm surprised this happened so quickly.

 

I have seen this before, especially on these "busy pipe" type headers. One name comes to mind in particular, AN-R.

I had a pleasure to own one of those (an-r and still do) and in that case it was $1300 "piece of work"...

Anyway, these cracks occur because of resonant frequencies involved and the way the header is put together and the way it resonates. In my case no amount of welding would keep the thing together, one crack after another. Once I took it off the car and put it on garage floor, it was ok from there on, did not even rust as it was SS.

Jokes aside, that was my experience with similar design of a header, but not this particular company or the header. Spring bolts, flex pipes, never bottomed out and nothing helped. In case of hard engine mounts they actually might be contributing to these cracks as it probably allows header to hit resonant frequency much easier (lack of actual flex and vibration absorption)

 

You are not the first to have that happen at that spot on those headers. I'm not quite sure why anyone would run without a flex-pipe though...

Weld it back together and hope for the best.

 

Weld it, sell it, buy an Alpha, and spend the leftover money on booze

 

 

yes!

 

for sure. Or maybe the logic. Im bummed on this one. I loved it before I starting using it but now I feel like its a little tacky and not very durable. I do like the fitment, but I expect strength out of this stuff. oh well. Oem honda would make less power but outlast the car.

 

update: I welded it back together and drove 1000 km. Then the exhaust itself snapped at the resonator. Installed spring bolts and have driven another 3000km. No problems since. I conclude the snappage to be installation error and not a product defect. I still think its a little over the top but the header is working well with acceptable clearance.

 

That's Bisimoto Engineering for ya!

 

With any header I highly recommend springs loaded bolts and/or a flex pipe on you exhaust system to prevent damage to the header due to vibration and torsional twist of the engine.

Also as you mentioned since you bottomed out as well that would greatly contribute to damaging of a header. Let me know if there is anything I can help you with.

 

Bump

 

Fix it and sell it, things a piece of junk.



Classic bisi, point fingers at anyone except owning up to it.

 

Because Engineer

 

Even the OP said that this was his fault.....

 

Smsp had a header that was in a accident or something to that effect and the welds held up no problem. If I find the pic ill post it

 

Sorry but top of the line header's don't crack because you bottom out or don't use springs? I mean **** ive never seen a replica china header crack at the welds due to either.

Just saying if it was a "top of the line" product (as bisi claims), it would've atleast lasted longer than 500km. Like i said OP re-weld and sell. As you can clearly see in this thread bisi will not back his product, and will point fingers at his customer's. Just my .02 and from what i've witnessed over and over again.

Good Luck.

 

With TIG welding easy to fix it

 

FYI I cracked two cheap *** Chinese headers within a year... fact! Then I bought another just to put it up to a couple NDT weld inspections. Welding connections! It didn't quite make the cut. In weld strength or material quality. I didn't go as far as to have an x-ray shot though..... No need... it was junk!

Without a flax point you are stressing it every time you step on the throttle and bashing it off a curb doesn't help ether.

All that being said longitudinal cracks like the one pictured above are usually caused by welder errors. Such was the case in the cheap Chinese headers as well. A weld should be as strong if not stronger than the material you are joining. This type of cracking is commonly caused by a cooling issue. The exhaust tubes and filler cooling at different rates. They can also be caused by; the root gap being too wide, going too hot or moving too fast. I said a few years ago that the welds on one of these headers looked like bubble gum/cold. I got pissed on and called a hater for saying that.

 

This is a general comment about any of these headers that I qualify as "intestinal" headers. Tubes expand when they heat up. Stainless steel has an expansion coefficient 50% greater than carbon steel so stainless headers can be worse. Just visualize any of these headers with the collector off, so just 4 tubes welded to a flange. Each tube has a bunch of crazy bends to it. Now heat it up to 1000-1300F. Where do you think the end of each tube moves to when it gets hot? No idea? Me neither. The bends heat and expand and start moving around plus each tube increases in length. Now what happens when you prevent the ends of the tubes from moving, i.e. weld a collector to them? Each end of each primary wants to move in a different direction but it can't because the collector is preventing movement. Something has to give. Plus if it's a stainless header that wasn't back purged when it was welded, something will give even sooner. Bottom line is none of these headers will have a long life if the collector is fully welded to each tube. I'm sure there will be people who come on and say I've had mine for x years and no breaks" but they will not be the norm. My thoughts are guys who buy these headers buy them because they think they are cool looking and that's it. But as long as people keep buying these we'll always get new customers in due time.

Merry Christmas to all.

 

you can say that again...