[Gavin@MMW]

Happy Sunday everyone, as promised here is the install breakdown. So pictures are missing.. sorry. But this is 98% of it.



First - pull the car on the lift, disconnect the battery, pop the hood to help cool the car down - they hold heat forever and took 1.5 hours for it to cool off enough to touch. With the hood open, remove the Radiator overflow to give you some room (we bungee'd it to the front and it was fine) :



You can see the WD40 can, spray all the nuts holding the OEM Exhaust Manifold to the block (16 of them, and they are hard to reach)

Next, (no pic sorry) take the windsheild washer filler hose, and pull it out of the engine bay and in to the passenger wheel well - If its full - prepare for a spill - Then: Remove the metal heat shields on the passenger engine side to maximize sight/ hand clearance.

After that: Lift the car so you can get in and work under it, remove all the undercarriage plastic skid plates from the front of the car:



While letting the car cool, we looked around to see what we were working with. Basically - nothing lol. There is so little room that it makes me think BMW purposely designed it so people wouldn't do this swap.



Our goal: remove the manifolds.

16 bolts hold them in (8 per manifold) there is no picture of this because there is no room to see anything, its just a blob - Sorry -

You need a 12-16" extension, a swivel elbow connector and another 4" extension and then a deep-well socket - 12mm. Some pizza and hotwings will help ease the frustration you are about to jump in to. It will take about an hour - 1.5 hours to get these things out.

I think it was 13 of the bolts we can get from the bottom - 3 up top in the engine bay.

If you succeed you should be looking at a gleaming piece of German engineering:



Notice the bolt pattern in these photos, then look at the OEM bolt pattern with the piping - you can see how its a PITA.



OEM Manifold:



Notice on the manifold there is a large gasket around the tube - its made of Lead or something flexible and soft like that. the Headers do not come with these. The solution is, spray them with some WD40, and take a thin but wide flathead screwdriver and wiggle under them and slide them off:



Once you get them off they should look like this:



You will need to transplant these on to the new headers - the problem with that is: the headers are a MM wider then the OEM pressed pipes, so take an air dremel with a metal cutting tip - dont use a sand paper tip - And WEAR GLOVES. These rings heat up very fast once you take the Dremel to it, and the heat goes right to your hand. You can not put them in a vice they are too fragile, so wear a glove and take your time to shave a little bit off the inside to make it slide snugly onto the new header. and again WD40 helps sliding them on. DO NOT FORCE THEM ON< THEY WILL BREAK AND YOU WILL BE SCREWED. Minor pressure is OK only.

Once you finish this, your are read to bolt the headers back in. And you instantly realize a new problem.

The Engine mount is in the way on the passenger side. Remove it.

4 bolts hold it to the block, and 2 bolts hold it to the frame.

Then wiggle and fight a little bit to get the Headers to clear the AC compressor and then it should look like this:



Notice the 2 big holes at the far left edge of this picture - those are the bottom 2 for the engine mount to the block - make a 4 inch square with your eyes and you can see the bolt pattern for removing it. its simple once your down there though.

Another image:


Now bolting these in is tricky, because once you get them in, you have to finger tighten the bolts on them all before you and tighten it down - so the gaskets seat correctly and dont smash and leak.



after that, tighten them down with the ratchets.



_--------------------------------------

Now comes time to mate the headers to the Midpipes. which requires some minor modification to the driver side midpipe just before the 2nd Cat.



notice we cut the pipe out, took a .5" section out just before the 2nd Cat (in the bend so it mated perfect to weld back on) bolt the cut pipe to the header BEFORE welding it back in to ensure proper fit.

The long header is a tad bit too long so this had to be done to fit the gasket and bolt in correctly.



Cutting the pipe^^




Now, weld it back together and your installed.

This is where the major problem comes in to play, reassembly of the motor mount.

you will notice instantly - it doesnt fit.....

to remedy that - trace the section that is rubbing with a marker. then measure how far up you need the mount to be to bolt correctly - its about a 1/2"

Put the mount in a vise and cut out a space for the header to clear. then put it back in and your golden.

before putting all the plastic back on, lower the car and turn it on. then lift it again and have a partner check for exhaust leaks (we have none because we're pro) lol

let the car idle while you put the plastic skidplates back on, lower it then turn it off.

You will notice it smell a little bit from burning off the header oils and wd40, no big deal.

before driving - replace the Radiator overflow - The windsheild washer tube out of your wheel well, and put the heat shields back on. double check for tools and then take it for a testdrive.

In the videos you have seen, I have a muffler delete on the car. and i noticed no loss of low end power from doing this with the muffler delete, and a huge pull up top and through the mid, basically mimicing the dyno of Dim Sum from what I know after tuning my car, and knowing how my dynos look I can assume a 10-15 Whp gain overall.

Dynos will be done soon, but not in a huge rush yet.

I am going to put a muffler on the car, Loud is an understatement.

and as much as I love the raspy "panther eating a chansaw" sound the police do not favor it as much.. I set of car alarms left and right .

after the muffler goes on, I will post some videos and some highspeed pulls for you guys to see and hear. Inside the cabin with the windows up - the sound is not bad at all, but outside is loud.

I also notice the car flys through the revs and is a lot more responsive when you hit a canyon (couldnt resist today)

So in closing, this mod is worth it. If your out of warranty.

Any locals can PM me to see/hear/drive to my ultimate driving machine.

any questions - post them up or shoot me a PM and I will get right on it

[BOSSBMW]

Thanks for a great write up, Craven; but you sir, are crazy!!!

One question I had, doesn't cutting the engine mount make it more likely to bend or break?

[MOTO69JOE]

Nice man can't wait for the final product!

[Gavin@MMW]

Originally Posted by beneliezer

Thanks for a great write up, Craven; but you sir, are crazy!!!

One question I had, doesn't cutting the engine mount make it more likely to bend or break?

the amount we cut out and where it is positioned its still plenty strong and isnt posing any problems, ive been driving the car hard all day to make sure.

[TommyK]

SWEET!!!

[ska///235i]

Nice...this is going to be "vrooommmm, vrommmmm"

[lul77]

damn man this is def not a diy install. i was fine with everything till it came to cutting pipes and engine mounts =( i wonder how much it'd cost to have this installed at a shop?

[itsbrokeagain]

Originally Posted by lul77

damn man this is def not a diy install. i was fine with everything till it came to cutting pipes and engine mounts =( i wonder how much it'd cost to have this installed at a shop?

I'm sure I could take care of it for you . I'm in the process of getting ready to put Sals XI under the knife to fit Vanguard exhaust to it

There are other ways to make this fit, gears are turning in my head as I write this...

[BlackBimmer1991]

would you have to put your stock headers back over every year for an inspection or will these pass

[itsbrokeagain]

Originally Posted by BlackBimmer1991

would you have to put your stock headers back over every year for an inspection or will these pass

as long as your emissions inspection is just plugging it into the OBD port, then you are good to go.

[Gavin@MMW]

Originally Posted by lul77

damn man this is def not a diy install. i was fine with everything till it came to cutting pipes and engine mounts =( i wonder how much it'd cost to have this installed at a shop?

We do them for low cost, but in NJ it might be different.

[IancoleTX]

Damn that is definitely not a DIY. Haha I think your PITA meter goes way higher than mine because you said this was a 7 or 8 but for me it is a solid 10. No way would I do this myself. Any shops in the Houston area wanna give this a go??

[Gavin@MMW]

Originally Posted by IancoleTX

Damn that is definitely not a DIY. Haha I think your PITA meter goes way higher than mine because you said this was a 7 or 8 but for me it is a solid 10. No way would I do this myself. Any shops in the Houston area wanna give this a go??

all you need is a cut off wheel

any shop should be able to do it, just dont get ripped off for it.

[Classycali]

Originally Posted by IancoleTX

Damn that is definitely not a DIY. Haha I think your PITA meter goes way higher than mine because you said this was a 7 or 8 but for me it is a solid 10. No way would I do this myself. Any shops in the Houston area wanna give this a go??

Yea definitely not for the faint of heart. Ian you should see how much SSA would do it for I hear they are pretty good.

[BudVlad]

Thanks Craven for the write up. I bought new gasket rings part No. 18407530606. I’m waiting for the O2 simulators before I do the install.

[mike-y]

Is there a way to get feedback to the manufacturer of the headers? These *should* be bolt on, without cutting. Looks like they need to revise the pipes to make them fit better. Unless for some odd reason the 328 manifold is different than a 325/330 manifold? Or were these made specifically for a 328?

[IancoleTX]

Originally Posted by mike-y

Is there a way to get feedback to the manufacturer of the headers? These *should* be bolt on, without cutting. Looks like they need to revise the pipes to make them fit better. Unless for some odd reason the 328 manifold is different than a 325/330 manifold? Or were these made specifically for a 328?

Right, the welding is the dealbreaker here. This is a good question.

[Gavin@MMW]

Originally Posted by mike-y

Is there a way to get feedback to the manufacturer of the headers? These *should* be bolt on, without cutting. Looks like they need to revise the pipes to make them fit better. Unless for some odd reason the 328 manifold is different than a 325/330 manifold? Or were these made specifically for a 328?

I have already sent them the info, so Im working on that too now.

These were for the 325, not 328, but I dont see why it would be different between the 2.

[IancoleTX]

Originally Posted by Craven 328

I have already sent them the info, so Im working on that too now.

These were for the 325, not 328, but I dont see why it would be different between the 2.

Keep us posted homie, and dynos too (eventually).

[Gavin@MMW]

Originally Posted by BudVlad

Thanks Craven for the write up. I bought new gasket rings part No. 18407530606. I’m waiting for the O2 simulators before I do the install.

Hey Bud,
Thanks for the part number, it was Sunday and I had no place to get them, so i just recycled them

as for the O2 sims, I just need to make a few tweaks - the car reads the air just fine and performs like nothing is wrong - but I need to clear the SES light from installing the headers and driving it around without the Sims in it.

------------------------

There are other ways to put this in, but something will have to be cut, if its the header or stock pipe doesnt matter - I didnt want to cut into the shiny header.

The engine mount - no way around it. Me and my boy Stevie (guy in the picks) tried for at least an hour to work around it and I couldnt come up with any bright idea at that point but to cut it.

I am going to reinforce the motor mount with a new plate and weld it in, so it will be thin and strong. but I know as it is now it is plenty strong to hold the motor, but just to be overly safe i am going to beef it up a little.

[Geonator]

ATTA boy Gavin!!

[lul77]

craven, i'm curious.... why didn't you cut the headers instead of cutting the exhaust? if you were to modify the headers, you can use the adapted one as a template for other obx headers and sell them modified to fit as a more "direct bolt on".