Well I just spent the last day and a half, with the help of my son, installing a set of JBA Titanium Ceramic Coated Headers. What a pain in the butt. JBA sends a set of instructions that includes. Wiggle, Cuss, Wiggle, Cuss somemore. I knew from the start this would be a job. My son talked me into doing the passenger side first since we both knew it would be the most difficult. Following are the steps.

1. Remove lower engine mount bolts. Raise truck 1" on passenger side. 15 minutes
2. Remove front tire. Instructions say to remove inner fender; but, the body lift gave me room to work with so I ignored this. 10 minutes
3. Remove the starter (bottom bolts - easy. top bolt - a pain) 1 hour
4. Release two bolts holding manifold to the exhaust. With the engine lifted, this was a snap. 15 minutes.
5. Begin the process of removing 8 manifold bolts. What fun. This took 2 - 3 hours. The bottom nuts and studs on cylinders 1, 2, & 3 will try your patience. I decided to remove the studs as well since the directions indicated that getting the JBA Header in would be very painful.
6. Remove the header. Came right out.
7. Install the JBA Header. This is where the directions indicated a royal pain; but, this wasn't difficult at all since I had removed all of the studs. Also, I started a bolt on the bottom of cylinder 3 and slid the header over the top.
I didn't realize just how difficult it was going to be to tighten this bolt up. The directions call for removing the motor mount from the engine; but, I had no idea how we would get it back in so we ignored this. Damned if we did and damned it we didn't.
8. Tighten the bottom bolt on cylinder 3 until it made no contact with the header tube. Maybe 4 turns in. 1 hour.
9. Tighten other 7 bolts on the header. 1 hour. Tightening the bottom bolts on 1 & 2 were not as difficult as removing them with the manifold in place; but, that was difficult nonetheless. Installed the bolt on the bottom of cylinder 2 required a little magic with a magnet; but, once we got it started, it was too bad with a ratcheting gear wrench.
10. Tighten the bolt on the bottom of cylinder 3. 3 more hours. 1/8th - 1/4 turn at best and just getting the open end gear wrench on the bolt sometimes required 15 minutes. This was way past difficult. My swollen hands tell the whole story. This would have been much easier if we had removed the engine mount from the engine; but, as I said earler... I just didn't see how we would get it back in with the header installed.
11. Retighten all 8 one more time.
12. Attach the header to the exhaust flange, re-install the starter, lower the engine and rebolt, re-install the tire. 1 hour.

Now on to the driver side. We thought this would be a snap. It wasn't a snap; but, it wasn't anywhere near as difficult as the passenger side. There were no real tricks hear; but, the bottom bolts on the cynlinders closest to the front of the vehicle required patience and determination. Removing the oil filter gave us enough room to get a wrench in.

The drivers side took a total of 3 1/2 hours. In both cases, I removed all of the studs except the two bottom cylinders closest the front of the truck. (Somebody tell me the cylinder numbers 'cause I don't know).

We did have leaks on the drivers side; but, re-tightening solved this.

All in all, this was a painful job and I am not quite sure worth it; but, it's done. Acceleration is more powerful and the sound is better.

 

Nice write up! I was considering adding the JBA's to my list of future mods but was not sure if it is worth it. It really depends on the vehicle, some cars/trucks respond well to a header change, and some don't.

 

Sweet! someday I'll pick me up one, after my Xcal 2.

 

Here's how I feel about mine...I love the sound, and feel of them, and the performance increase at cruising/highway speeds is real nice, BUT (and a big but) they are a super pain in the **** to install. However, it can be done, and I did it by myself (although it took me a few weeks because I had the patience and time). If I had to do it over again, I would have paid someone to do it.

I agree with the motor mount. I saw no easy way to remove it, nor did I see much of a benefit to do so, let alone reinstall it to the torque specs that it would want, so I worked around the motor mounts (and it ate some of my Stage 8 locking hardware a few times by falling into the frame rails etc). I also removed ALL studs...however, found out quickly that I needed two in on each side to line the header up correctly and snugly to put all the bolts in (there was VERY little tolerance since I used the Stage 8 locking stuff).

I did come up with a few suggestions, such as racheting closed end wrenches...those rock when tighting down the headers, and (loosely) bolt another normal wrench onto the ratcheting closed end wrench to create a longer one...this allowed me access on the passenger side with pressure created by prying a screwdriver against the bolt head to screw them in relatively quickly and painlessly.

I also noticed, that my collector bolts kept backing off for a while until I double nutted them. Congrats on the install! It truly is one to be proud of, because it's a pain.

 

DevilSun,

How many times after the install did you need to re-torque. Even after locking the passengers side down real good on the install, I found cylinder 4 top 1/2 turn loose. I have no leaks yet; but, I haven't driven it very far since the install. I ran it good until it hit normal temp a couple of times. This weekend, I am going to lift the motor again and retighten the passenger side. There is no way to get to cylinders 1,2, & 3 bottom without do this that I can see. Also, I haven't even put a wrench on the collector bolts since the install. I'll check them this weekend as well.

As for the ratheting gear wrenches. I didn't even start until I went a bought a second set. My son took my first set to work so I bought flexible head ratheting gear wrenches. This job would have been a whole lot more difficult without them and it was plenty tough still.

My 4.10 Gears are going in now. Next, the high flow cats and by the end of the month I hope to have the XCAL2.

 

Man...great job both you guys! That sure sounds like something I'd get myself into and then hate life. I remember modding my 89 fox body mustang, and thinking this is a scary looking engine compartment (compared to all the pre-smog, pre-electronics stuff I was used to) But looking under my truck's hood now....no thanks.


Jason.

 

I did it probably three times, and kept getting at least a few small turns out of one or two random ones. After the last time when barely any moved, I put the clips on my locking Stage 8 bolts so they won't back out -- that beefy flange is very hard to tighten down effectively across all 4 ports on the first try I noticed...I ended up pretty much quadruple cross checking the bolts. I hope to never have to get in there again heh...and you're right, no way to get to those front cylinders without lifting the engine a little...I did that so many times it was almost lickety split by the time I was done.

 

This was a big pain; but, the trick to this job is patience. My son is an auto mechanic by trade; but, still somewhat impatient as 24 year olds go. He played with the bottom bolt on cylinder 3 for awhile. Frustration took over and so did a more patient Dad even after having spent 4 hours working on this. Years ago, I was the same way; but, time and experience teach us that difficult jobs are handled far more efficiently by understanding and then acting and some things are just going to take awhile. This reminds me of a truism my father-in-law told me.

A young bull and an old bull were standing on the top of a hill looking down at a group of cows. The young bull told the old bull "Let's run down there and screw a cow". To which the old bull responded.. "Naw, let's walk and screw them all".

 

DevilSun,

I was just told by an experienced mechanic that not re-using the studs wherever possible is a bad idea. He explained that it is easy to over tighten steel bolts against the aluminum head. Since JBA sends these headers with only 3 bolts, I decided to discard the studs whereever I could re-using only two of the studs.

I am interested in your thoughts.

 

Yeah, well the same applies for screwing any steel bolts into an aluminum housing. I used the Stage8 bolts because I don't want to ever have to get back in there again to tighten up the studs/nuts because they rattled or heated loose. My JBA headers on my old Ranger needed tightening once a year or sometimes more, and I wasn't going to do that on this truck. I don't think it's really a bad idea to use steel [locking] bolts in aluminum heads, a lot of people who put headers on do it [because they lock], you just have to be careful not to overtorque them as with most anything, especially in this case.

I've heard that cow thing before, on Sopranos I think. Hehe.