[xtremelywhite]

well, jba titanium coated headers are going in this weekend. What am I looking at. Am i going to come up many variations of old cuss words. For those of you that have them and put them in yourselves, did you put them in from the top or bottom and how hard was it to get the manifolds out. Im pretty mechanically inclined, I put my powerdyne on. I just want to know what I've gotten myself into. Thank god I work at a dealership. One of the mechanics I work with is coming into help. So hopefully it won't take as long. Hopefully spraying en-force on all the bolts this week help. wish me luck. any info on the above ? will be greatly appreciated. thanks

shawn

 

[madman7703]

It is going to be a time consuming pita reguardless of how you do it. Do yourself a favor though and remove the inner fenderwells. Believe me, this makes the job so much easier. Good luck and let us know it goes for you.

 

[MINTSICK]

I am curious about this as well, you remove the inner fenderwells, are you saying you completely took them off the truck? I mean there are quite a few things attached to them, all of those things either disconnect or unbolt easily with no problems putting everything back in?

 

[madman7703]

yes take them completely out of the truck. On the drivers side you will need to remove the windshield washer tank and unbolt the fuze box and hang it from the hood (I used a close hanger for this). On the passenger side you will need to remove the battery, unbolt the computer and move it off to the side, and remove the radiator overflow tank. Now take out the bolts that hold the inner fenderwells and remove them. The 45 minutes or so it takes to do this will save you a few hours of knuckle busting and cursing, trust me. This make the install so much easier and really makes installing the hardware connecting the headers to the y-pipe a snap.

 

[bg's]

Madman's got it right. Pulling the inner skirts will save you sooo
much time. Get it up on jack stands, pull the wheels and tires, the
inner skirts and the exhaust bolts are staring right back at ya.
Very easy to access.

JBA exhaust flange to head gaskets BITE. They're hard to seal.
I would get the best exhaust gaskets you can. Genuine GM will work
good as well as Fel-Pro, and Mr.Gasket Ultra Seals. Also get a tube
of Permetex copper based silicone. You'll want it to seal the cone
to y-pipe junction, as there won't be any gaskets. The JBA's use a
welded on inversed cone for the y-pipe to connect to. I dumped
the bolts JBA is sending with their headers and got GM small block
header bolts and lock washers. The size is 3/8-1"- 3/8" 6 point head.
Being the small block come in 3/8" 6 point head they'll allow you to get
into the tight area between the bolt and the header pipe so you
can torque all bolts down much easier. The bolts themselves where
grd 8. Worked excellent. Got em at a local speed shop. Yer gonna
find you may have to bend the oil dipstick tube around to make
it fit right. I had to pull mine out and bend it just right so I could
get it to mount into the block decent.

Last, I used Mr.Gasket Ultra Seals witha small bead of copper silicone
around each port area on both sides of the gasket. Very small bead.
This insured a leak free install. You may have to change out num *1
and num *6 spark boots to 90* boots to keep them from burning on
the header tubes.. For bolts down at the y-pipe to header collectors
I used 3/8"x 2.5 stainless grd 5 allen head bolts and stainless flange
nuts. A lil hassle to install and get to, but they have NEVER come
loose.

I bought a couple of 3/8" studs and just screwed them into
the head on each corner loose-like to hang the header from, while
I got the other header bolts started, then I pulled em and replaced
with header bolts Made it reall easy to install the header and
exhaust gasket without messing up and fighting to hold the header,
and the gasket at the same time, while trying to get a header bolt
started..Very helpful.

It's all about taking yer time. If ya get to be in a hurry, it will drive
ya nuts. With two exper GM techs on it, you should be able to
knock it out in a day, if ya start early. Might take two days.

I don't know bout the new trucks, but on my 92, I had to pull the
pwr/str pump to access the back support bracket for the pump.
On mine it was bolted to the pump AND the num*1 exhaust studs on
the l/s. There was no other way to get to it unless the pump was
pulled. The bracket sits on the two and held down with nuts.
I had to pull the nuts off then the pump with bracket, lay it aside
then I was able to get to the two front exhaust studs and the nuts
that held the exhaust manifold to the head at num*1. A TRUE PITA !
if you have to do this, you'll need a pulley puller as I think the late
rides also have a pressed on pwr/str pump pulley

Other than all this, it was a pc of cake..and you'll have the
satisfaction of knowing that, yes installing headers on an S truck
is not fun, but after they break in you'll feel the diff. My ole ride
rolls pretty good for just the minor cr*p I've done to it.

Took me two weeks, but I like to fish too..HTH's and sorry for the
long post. But i didn't have anything else to do..

 

[s10rz350]

Like everyone else I removed my inner fenders.
I used Felpro gaskets.
ARP locking studs/fastners.
On mine I cut the flange to clear the dipstick tube rather than removing the dipstick tube. I'm sure people will tweak over this but its fine.
Tightened em down in the proper order to 35ftlbs and havent had a leak since.

I did have to pull my y-pipe off and bend it to meet the headers properly, that took some extra time.

 

[xtremelywhite]

in what order are you supposed to torque the bolts in. i've actually been looking for this info and haven't been able to find it. if some one could give me a rough pic of the order they get tightened down in would be awesome or just a quick description. thanks

 

[bg's]

I did mine starting at the center. I snugged em up, then went
to the front end, back to rear, center, then to the front, etc.

I torqued em in steps starting at 15'#, 25'# and then 35'#. Torqued em
after about 10 minutes of running and a cool down, went for a
ride, came back let it cool and a new retorque, then went for a long
ride, came back let it cool and a final retorque. I ck em once
a month now and both the header bolts and the y-pipe bolts
haven't moved and have never had a leak. Had one at the cat
to mid pipe as I have a ball and flange junction. Fixed that with
stainless bolts flange nuts and exhaust coil springs between the
flange and the flange nuts like the stock y pipe to manifold junction..
Stays tight as a drum now.

 

[xtremelywhite]

never want to do that again. that was the biggest pain in the a55. took so long that we didn't even get to take it out and run it and bring it back to retorque. just let it idle for like 20 mins, didn't hear any leaks. but will be checking when i get a chance at work this week. what kind of header bolts did you guys use. i used mr. gasket hex bolts. not as long as the ones that came with the kit, but easier to get on. but i do need an alignment now. the steering shaft wouldn't go back on so we needed to turn it a little to get everything to line up. so now my steering wheel sits crooked. oh well, who said after market was easy. later

 

[bg's]

Yea you might have to get one. I didn't but I have a 1st Gen
and there's more room. Did you pull the inner skirts to install ?

Welcome to the s-truck headers install club. Yer a Vet now.
Not many want to attempt this again...Fun huh..:drinkhaha

 

[xtremelywhite]

yeah, i pulled the skirts. made it easy to get the manifolds out, but it was still a b--ch to get the headers in. i have another quest. is there any way to get the steering wheel off and just recenter it rather than doing an alignment. the alignment is fine, its just that my steering wheel sits vert. rather than hor. when we were putting the steering shaft back in, it didn't want to line back up so we had to turn the shaft a tad bit to get it to line up.

 

[madman7703]

The shaft will only go into the gear box one way only, so let me ask you a question. Did you have the steering wheel locked before you removed the shaft? It doesn't sound like you did and that the steering wheel got moved before you reinstalled the shaft. You could probably remove the wheel to center it, but you would be better off in the long run to get the tires pointed straight, remove the shaft, center the steering wheel, and then reinstall the shaft. Sorry to hear about your problem.

 

[bg's]

That's a good point. Never thought about the wheel being locked or
unlocked..I suppose you could pull the wheel, but I don't know
if the bag would deploy or not..I would disconnect the battery
before I tried to reposistion it. Be a bummer to get it right then
all sudden BANG, got bag all over. They ain't cheap to replace !!
:woah:

 

[jmwxtreme43]

My headers just came today in the mail from ebay after 5 weeks!!! They look so nice though, no hardware came with them but my father will get that for me, so as i have been reading i will go with the gaskets you guys got and the GM bolts. Roughly how long did this take you? I plan on having about 4 or 5 guys helping me out all knowledged about stuff like this so i hope it all goes well. So about 45 mins to remove all the shit from the fenders and take the fender walls out, then remove manifolds and steering column etc....install headers, button all back up. Where can i get the connectors to the exhaust pipes, i only got headers in my package (EBAY ITEM). Also, i heard people talk about needing an angle grinder, i have one but i was wondering if and what you will need it for? Lastly, is there any type of modifications i will have to do to any other part of my truck for these to work/fit correctly? Thanks everyone for the info above, you have answered many of my questions

 

[bg's]

I can't think of one reason for the grinder. The y-pipe that's hooked up
to your right and left manifolds will bolt up to your headers. You don't
need any donut gaskets for the y-pipe as the inversed cone on the
end of the headers makes up for the donut gaskets. The only things
you need is top quietly exhaust to manifold gaskets, Permetex
copper based silicone and, I suggest small block v-8 header bolts
3/8"x1" with the 6 point 3/8" head to make it easier to get a socket
on. You may have to change out the straight spark boots on num 1
and num 6 plug wires. You may have to relocate the knock sensor
or water temp sender on the right side, to either the upper hole
or lower hole on the r/s of the block to clear the header flange.
Don't forget the header bolt lock washers. They're important.

Spray the manifold bolts the nite before with PB Blaster or a good
penetrate, and let soak. With all those guys there it's gonna take
some time. You might get it done in a day, but I'd try to keep
three days open in case you run into something..If ya go to
JBA's site, I think they have an instruction page telling ya how
to do the job..It's not bad, but it's not real easy either..You'll
find out. I just hope you don't end up like this afterwords. I did
for a couple days.
:yikes:
www.jbaheaders.com