I'm thinking about getting my tri-y header tig welded around the slip fit because it rattles (story below). My question is, why are some tri-y headers made with a slip fit and others (Spark header) made so everything is one piece? I don't see a reason NOT to weld this header, but maybe someone can point something out. Thanks!

A while back I bought a first gen. Rage tri-y header (stainless steel version, exact copy of Hytech production header basically) I've had it on the car now for about 400 miles and the "rattle" on the slip fit gets worse and worse. I've tightened the bolts down and it helped a little bit, but it would just got back to normal rattle the next day. I then took the header off and removed the bolts...hammered the slip fit together from the collector side, put the bolts back on...and still it rattles. There is no smoke coming from between the slip fit so i know there's not a huge gap there. Here's some pics of what I'm talking about

 

weld them.

slip fits are nice I guess for installation, but that is a very minor peice of a header's lifetime, I would be more satisfied with a header that took me 4 hours to install but doesn't rattle every day.

RMF engineering

 

That's what I'm saying...

the header was shipped in one piece, and i install it as a one piece.

I guess maybe they made it that way so you don't have to take the whole header off if you're trying to work on the back of your block from underneath the car. maybe that's a long shot answer, anyway. hah

 

just a thought - have you tried using two nuts at the end to lock the bolt in place, or perhaps even some loc-tite?

 

Slip joints allow a little motion which can help prevent cracks, relieve vibration, etc.

 

No because even when i tighten it as much as it will go, it still rattles when its cold. it's not so much an issue when the car is above idle temp or after 3k rpm.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by flyrod &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Slip joints allow a little motion which can help prevent cracks, relieve vibration, etc.
</TD></TR></TABLE>