Haha no problem, just brainstorming and sharing thoughts with ya! I have thought about having both . . . It all depends on what job I've got at the time and how much I wanna spend. If I can't control myself, I may end up going ***** to the wall with the truck and just bypassing the mustang entirely haha

 

I wish I had the dough to go ***** to the wall with my truck...

On a positive note, I found one more shop that has a mandrel bender near by.. I'm going to try them tomorrow and if that doesn't work it looks like I'm going with crush bends.

 

I just had this exact setup installed on my truck a month ago. I paid 600, that was labor, 2.5" 304 stainless pipe and two 2.5" v-band clamps. I had the work done by a place called Racing Performance Machine in Phoenix AZ, great guys to work with and great work. Two guys had it knocked out in 6hrs. I found it difficult to find a place that had a mandrel bender, had to make the trip from Tucson to Phoenix, i asked the owner how many other mandrels there were in Phx and he seemed to think there was only 2 or 3 others in the whole city.

 

I don't have the money either . . . Haha

What did you end up doing/getting?

 

I checked up on that other shop and they don't do mandrel bending anymore.. So, I went to a muffler shop and he is going to buy mandrel bends and do it that way.

I started taking the old exhaust manifolds out and got most of it done before realizing that I didn't have the correct tools to finish the job. I had to leave all my tools back home in Canada.. I'm in Oklahoma for school. So I got my truck towed to the muffler shop and he is going to finish it.

I ordered 2 Borla XR-1's (Part #40085), a Magnaflow X-Pipe (10791), 2 Jones Black Vein Coated Tips (JEX-JAC418-BV), Percy's Locking Header Bolts (310060) and new Ford OEM Gaskets. Everything got in today and I stopped by his shop to drop everything off. He had one manifold off and was working on the other one. So, I'm hoping he can get it done this weekend..

 

I started to do mine, did almost all of it, but couldn't get the 2 PITA studs out on the passenger manifold and had a shop pull em and just had them put the headers in too.

I got the Percy's and OEM gaskets too. Glad I paid extra for the convenience of the Percy's and didn get to benefit from it haha.

I think my modding may come to a halt of sorts when I have to go back to school in a week . . .

 

Haha I know right.. How are those header bolts holding up? Any leaks?

 

Well . . . There's a bit of a story with that. I checked the bolts when I got the truck back and none of the set screws that I checked were locked. My whole family has gone to this shop basically since they opened, a decade +, and I told the guys 2 seperate times with very clear instructions on specifically how to install these bolts and they were in the original packaging, so they could see that way as well. But I was tired of not being able to drive, so I didn't raise a fuss about it with the shop.

When I removed my original manifolds, I saw that one gasket on each side had been leaking a bit. This could be a possible explaining the slight ticking I heard and had attributed to the cam phasers or something else.

With the headers on, there is a pronounced ticking on both banks. I noticed this right when I got the truck back and drive it home, but it had open headers so I couldn't tell what noises were what. I had a hard time finding 02 sensor bung plugs, so for the first week with the entire exhaust on, it was leaking out of the bungs. Another reason why I couldn't tell where the ticking was coming from. When EVERYTHING was finally done, I could still hear the ticking.

I needed my truck for work and just let it be for about 2 weeks. I finally couldn't take it anymore because it was annoying the hell out of me. It ticks pretty loudly on cold starts and on high RPM, which I can hear when my windows are down. But it quiets down to a steady tick upon idle. All are characteristics of a leaking manifold gasket. I work at a car dealership with a pretty large service shop, so I asked our exhaust guru to listen to it. We listened on warm idle and a few hours later on a cold start.

He says the ticking MIGHT just be a characteristic of long tubes and the stainless steel. If it is leaking, it's so borderline leaking/not leaking, that he said not to mess with it. Just tighten the bolts down again, lock em properly, and see what happens. I've had the headers on for about 4 1/2 weeks (~800 miles) and haven't had time to tighten the bolts down again yet. I think the bolts are fine, just pissed with the shop for not installing them properly. So take all of that for what you will haha.

I'm going to school in 6 days and am gonna try to tighten them down before I leave. If they are leaking and get worse, I'll just suck it up and replace the gaskets on one of my trips home. The only reason I had the shop do it all was because they didn't tighten my lugs nuts after a rotation and alignment, 5 flew off my passenger side and they could've killed me. SO, they knocked down the install from 5.5 hours (which was complete BS in the first place) to 3.5 hours. That and it would've cost $100 (or one shop hour) just to tow it home. I knew they were gonna ******* something up. And I got the liberty of paying $350 for a job I could've done better myself! And in less time

 

You didn't use the OBX provided gaskets?


Stealth had the same problem with his OBXs and OEM Ford gaskets.

 

Wow. That is one crazy story.. Hopefully it can be solved with just tightening the bolts. And I'm hoping I don't have that problem because I have limited tools here.. But have you had any other problems with that shop in the past?

 

The OBX gaskets literally crumbled and part of the top "layer" was almost like chalk and was stuck to the plastic packaging when I removed them. Those certainly weren't going on my truck! What did stealth end up doing, especially if it did that with both sets of gaskets? Is it even a problem, or do his still do that?

But this shop was fine until recently. Once I bought my truck, the only thing they could do right was oil changes. I had them do my spark plugs and one coil replacement after I had a misfire. (I didn't have the time when it happened and didn't want to risk breaking any of them) Guess what the bill was. $900! My truck was fine for all of an hour before it started shaking and misfiring. Turns outcome of the plugs was "defective" and "must've come like that out of the box." They also did the compressor and condenser for the AC in my Dad's 07 Mustang GT. It was never right when he bought it new, and finally got it fixed when it crapped out. That worked for all of a week before they needed to fix it again. I can't complain because they've been good to us and we give them all of our business. They'd been good for a long time and are still highly rated and charge $100 an hour. So they can't be that bad. But every time I take my truck in, I feel like I'm having work done by the audio guy at the flea market that taught himself how to "fix sh*t" haha

 

You guys really having problems with the obx gaskets. Mine seemed perfect when i took them outa the package.
Two years later i heard, what i thought, were my headers leaking. I took it to a few exhaust shops and they all said they weren't leaking. So in my experience the gaskets were decent.

I did however have a few exhaust leaks on the welds on my piping. Just got mostly all new piping ran. Now my only leak is the edge of the borla muffler cracked. . I thought I heard leaking by the headers, but once again the exhaust shop said they weren't leaking.. Maybe they just didn't wanna do the work?

 

I don't think I even bothered to look at the pacesetter gaskets.. I just went ahead and bought new OEM gaskets.

 

Well I'm sure part of the problem with the gaskets is that my OBX kit was made in 2009. I guess I'll assume mine aren't leaking cause my guy said they weren't and yours keep saying they aren't either. Still curious as to what Stealth ended up with

 

I do wish i woulda went oem gaskets tho. Then i wouldn't be worried about them leaking as much.