im not talkin about smsp or companies like that, im talkin about your own header. my friend has a jdm dc 4-1 that i can get for free b/c he totaled his car and crushed the header so i was thinking about getting it and cutting the flanges off and re-making the piping. i have all equipment like welder and such so that is not a problem i was just seeing if anyone has done this and how the results came out? thanks for any help


Modified by cjames235 at 11:12 PM 10/13/2003

 

Why not give it a try and see what happens? Surely he wouldn't want much money, if any, for it.

 

picked it up tonight. from the oil pan curve to the collector is still perfect and the head flange is good. other than that it is mangled and flat. what material is the header made of? stainless steel? it is the ceramic coated one

 

SMSP

 

take pics and let us know how it goes

 

Use mild steel. Weld up some **** and see what happens

If you get good results, get it coated.

 

I wish I had the money to get an aftermarket header to just cut apart and see how it is structured so that I could attempt something like this. I'm in welding classes now and feel that soon with a TIG welder I will have the ability to try and make something like that. Anyone have pics of cut apart headers? Or diagrams to actual construction of one?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ill phil &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I wish I had the money to get an aftermarket header to just cut apart and see how it is structured so that I could attempt something like this. I'm in welding classes now and feel that soon with a TIG welder I will have the ability to try and make something like that. Anyone have pics of cut apart headers? Or diagrams to actual construction of one?</TD></TR></TABLE>

do you think i bought this thing? i got it free off my friends totalled car. here are some pics of what its starting off as. ill take pics of it when i cut it apart

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by cjames235 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

do you think i bought this thing? i got it free off my friends totalled car. here are some pics of what its starting off as. ill take pics of it when i cut it apart
</TD></TR></TABLE>

No, I read that you got it for free. I was making a statement that was relevant to the thread. What I really meant was having the money to buy a real power proven header- I have JDM DC 4-1 myself but want more power and want to make it myself since I don't have the money for an SMSP one

 

wow that thing looks pretty

 

you can get a burns collector for around 200 bux

good piping is another 200 bux

flanges are only 20 bux if u know where to get em from

just alot more time needs to be put in, and figure out which size of piping will work good for your app

its not as easy as putting together a bunch of piping. but if you know what to do, you can get something pretty kickass for not much money

 

Thats what I'm hoping for. No telling maybe I'll throw something together soon It'll look shitty but I'm sure it would work better than my dented as JDM 4-1.

 

i wanna know how it turns out so better let us know when you get it done

 

i cut it up today and will probly go to NAPA and see about getting some piping. if they done have it im gonna order some from jcwhitney. itll be about a week or two before i get around to it but ill post up when i get it done...............if it ever gets done.............

 

Ya know, since you're building your own you may want to experiment...

There's a guy here in AZ who built his own header (in fact, a couple), and decided to fvck around with tube length. Rather than making the pipes equal length from the exhaust ports he made them equal length from the throttle body. I believe the #4 piston is closest so that had the shortest pipe, etc.

I can't remember exactly what the dyno differences were, but his 1/4 mile times improved significantly with this setup, and he swears by it.

:shrugs: just a thought.
And don't bother flaming me as I didn't build the header and don't have the dyno charts, time slips or engineering know-how to back any of this up- it's just what I've seen (and I have seen it ).

 

I would just replace the squashed part with some new pipeing of a different diameter. The "Stepped" design provides more torque. I have never built headers before but I have built turbo manis. same diff stepped designs give more torque. look at some of the high end headers they are steped. In all reality used dc headers are 200 dollars. I would just buy one of those.

 

give it a shot. looks like u'll need to replace a bunch of things on that header. if u'r good with the torch, let her rip and tell us what happens! pictures would be great.

 

what kind of pipe bending yields no bottlenecks? is it mandrel or the other type? either way, good luck.

it would probably be cheaper just to buy a new header, as these guys at smsp and hytech have spent a lot of $$$ doing R&D

 

the mandrel bent piping is the one thats not bottlenecked the other one is called "crush bent"

anyways on the jcwhitney site they have the 180 deg. bends in 1-3/4" OD (which is the same as the dc) for 11.99 each. i feel that if i buy 4 maybe 5 (to be safe) of the 180's and put in a little time, i could build it for ~$75 with shipping so that aint a bad waste to me if it goes down the drain or it could be something good for cheap!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by cjames235 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">the mandrel bent piping is the one thats not bottlenecked the other one is called "crush bent"

anyways on the jcwhitney site they have the 180 deg. bends in 1-3/4" OD (which is the same as the dc) for 11.99 each. i feel that if i buy 4 maybe 5 (to be safe) of the 180's and put in a little time, i could build it for ~$75 with shipping so that aint a bad waste to me if it goes down the drain or it could be something good for cheap!</TD></TR></TABLE>

I actually have a stainless DC 4-1 that has a few dents in the bottom (in what would be the "good" portion of your header). The rest of the tubing from the upper flange to slightly after the bends by the oil pan is completely fine. If you're interested, I'll sell you the entire thing or cut it where the dents start and just sell the good portion. It's going cheap.

 

well i ordered all my u-bends today. theyll be here in 7-10 days, so she said, which i dont understand cus im in TN and they are in IL? anyways im borrowing my friends jdm dc to make a jig out of wood tomorrow so i can get the clearances right

 

well i got my stuff yesterday only took 3 days to get here! so if all goes well ill have pics of it finished probly sunday! heres what i got:

 

Its very easy to do, just pick a design you like and go for it. Its pretty slef eexplanitory.,

 

im just tryin to figure out how im going to weld all the way aroun each of the collector pipes? got any ideas?

 

Wow good luck with your header building project.
I'd really like to see how it turns out.