I recently installed coilovers on my car and now my header scrapes a lot... The header, and the whole exhaust, has always been a bit low, but now that I lowered the car it's becoming a problem. I planned on taking my car to a muffler shop and having them reweld the exhaust hangers because they've always been a little cockeyed, but I wanted to pick up a new header while I'm at it. I was hoping to get something that wouldn't stick down as far as my current DC Sports 4-2-1 header. D16Z6 BTW. Any suggestions?

 

get a better header, ask dudes with Dseries and dumped suspension what they are using. also you can put some washers in your motor mounts to raise the motor, and they make header skid plates. theres a guy on H-T that sells them

 

bump

 

How many miles are on the car? Your motor mounts might be done, and that is why it is sitting so low.

I had that same header with a bigger exhaust and mine didnt sit anywhere near that low.

 

Roughly 150-160k on the body, about 90k on the engine. I got the car when the engine had about 75k on it and it sat just the same. I'll check out the motor mounts and see what kind of condition they are in tomorrow after work. I never even thought about that TBH.

 

Engine mounts look great.

I wouldn't be too surprised if my header isn't meant for my car or something. The p/o was a dumbass. So back to smaller header... suggestions?

 

the header should be ok...i think it works on all body styles as long as its a manual tranny. if you get rid of it you'll be losing some upper range power, there aren't many better than the dc sports one...i'd just keep it.

 

I'd like to keep it to save $, but I don't want it hanging down so low.

Edit: It's not supposed to site that low, right? WTF?
P.S. oil leak? heh

 

maybe your exhaust is on upside down.

 

I have some Dc Sport Headers and they are good. but they cracked so i took them off and put it back stock with stock header and down pipe and god dam, when i lowered the jack the downpipe got squashed and cracked lol. so I gave up on putting them back on and put my dc's back on and welded the cracks shut.

My EG is slammed. I run open header though no exhaust. so i dont know if over time after hitting a few to many bumps and crap is squashed the downpipe up or it is just a different design than stocks.

After looking at ur pics that is exactly how my stock ones looks. but my dc's are flesh with the oil pan lol. half an inch from the pan. where the pan goes in a lot that is where mine chill at.

 

jdm is right, your exhaust piping is upside down. If you see where that parallel hanger is in this picture, it's suppose to be on the top, not on the bottom.

I know, because I installed mine upside down and my piping looked like that, flipped it back up, and everything is great, lots of clearance.

It looks like you have a stock bottom collector, bolted to aftermarket headers. Since it's that way, the installer probably flipped the exhaust so that it could bolt up to the downpipe.

I would get another set of headers, and flip the exhaust right side up....then drop the car more

 

what do you mean its upside down? what is upside down.

 

i doubt its the mounts it wouldnt look like that.

i would just get new headers....and it looks like you have an oil leak somewhere.

good luck.

 

There are a few pieces to an exhaust system. The middle section looks to be upside down.

 

not only is the pipping sitting low but the down pipe its self seems to low and far down. thats dangerous you could hit a speed bump and rip the header out the engine like i did.

 

If you have a bolt on exhaust, you should be able to unbolt the middle section, pull it out, flip it, and the put it back.

However, I can almost guarantee that the installer flipped it so the headers would fit. So if you flip it, without swapping your headers, you wont be able to bolt it up.

 

I think it is good because the catlac shield is in the right place. if it were upside down wouldn't that shield be on the top and not bottom.

 

IIRC, the shield on the cat itself should be on the bottom, facing the ground. In that pic, it looks to be facing up.

his setup looks upside down, to be 100% honest, from what I see.

 

if you look at this pic, you can see that the middle pipe has two hangers. When bolted in, those hangers should be pointing at a downward angle (like it is in the pic). If that pipe is flipped upside down, it hangs real low on the hanger. If you look at the other pic, which I outlined in red, the hanger is not how it is suppose to be.


I did the exact same thing. I hated myself cux I had to go back under and change it around to fit.

 

^^^^ya, but look at the header themselfs. that is way to dam low for them. their the wrong header maybe? even if the piping is raised more the dam header and downpipe are far to low.

 

If you look at this pic, the top section of the headers looks clean and new, like aftermarket or something. Since the bottom looks rusty and old, I'm guessing that they installed aftermarket headers on top, stock downpipe on the bottom, and flipped the exhaust so that it would all fit.

I've NEVER seen headers have that much clearance with the oil pan. I'm guessing the aftermarket downpipe is shorter than stock, and they didn't have it or something. IDK.

 

and as for the shield for the cat, it is in the right location. however, you wouldn't have to flip the cat to make everything work...just that mid pipe.

 

mid pipe looks wrong, maybe the mid pipe and the actual header is a mismatch, and the rest, the hangers are upside down so. . . flip it around!. Exhausts are usually quite snug up in the body, cant really COMFORTABLY fit my hand between my exhaust and the bottom of my car.

 

Wow, lots of responses. Thanks guys.

I actually installed the exhaust system (except for the header/downpipe). I pretty much peiced it togther in the only way it would fit. It's always been a little off. If you look at the red box omgwtfbbq outlined, that hanger is being pulled on and the opposite one is being squashed. I almost don't wanna admit this, but right now the muffler is being held on at the rear hangers by zipties(ftw). If I mount it up with the stock hangers then the piping hits the side of the fuel tank (!!!). So pretty much the whole exhaust from the header back is outta whack.

Since I dropped my car I've been scraping my downpipe on any big bumps in the road. And today my CEL popped on, Code 41... Should I just go with brand new header/downpipe? If so, then what brand?

 

Just get some ebay headers and exhaust system. I have 2.5 ebay n1 system, bought for like $150 shipped....bolted right on, no probs!