George, anytime you touch (remove or replace) a working catalylic, you are in violation of the smog laws on CA.

The headers MUST have an EO number, or you could be bounced at the smog test.

 

with the great power gains they had in the truck it realy sounds too good to be true for those of you that live in Cali.

Us folks that live in Alaska on the other hand...(No smog checks outside of Anchorage, and when it IS done it is done every 2 years. )

 

I thought there was a 80,000 mile/8 year rule. Thanks for the info!

George

 

Spike Engineering,

I am almost positive that the law is that you cannot change the cats on a vehicle until it reaches 50,000 miles or is 5 years old and even at that time you can only change them if they fail. If they fail before 5 years or 50,000 miles it is the dealerships responsibilty to fix them.

 

Whether it's 5/50 or 8/80, I doubt I'll own it.

Spike

 

JDM's headers look good, another great alternative would be

Lightning performance Products Long tube Headers @

http://www.f150lightning.com/

Totaled has them on his truck, they are ceramic coated to help keep the heat inside the headers for more power and not in the engine bay.

You can touch them minutes after his 1/4 mile run and they are cool to the touch.

 

Silver-Bolt,

No problems switching cats. The stock H-Pipe has 2 actual converters (those are the bigger ones towards the back) and the two small cats up front are "Pre-Cats" that are there to create heat and burn off exhaust gases. A lot of your engine bay heat comes from them.

DL,

I originally had a set from Mike but comparing the two designs I went with the JDM pieces. Stainless actually makes more power than a ceramic coated pipe and I also didn't want to worry about the ceramic falling apart on the inside of the headers ( rare, but it happens ). Another thing to consider is the thickness of the material, again the JDM tubes are thicker and will last longer. Lastly, I was originally going to do the install myself so my concern was with how difficult that would be as I had some fun with Bassani shorties on a different truck before. The install could not have been easier, it was almost like swapping the stock manifolds. The motor did not have to be jacked up and there is a crap load of clearence underneath. You no longer have to drop the exhaust to drop the tranny like on a stock system. That's a huge plus for me.

Either way you guys decide you won't be dissapointed and if you've seen my engine lately you know I would have liked the ceramic coated headers but I had to go with function rather than fashion. Later guys.

 

Let's call a spade a spade. These aren't JDM pieces, they are Kook's. All JDM had to do was show up with a Lightning and pay the man. Basically the same engineering effort as ordering fast food

No offense! Just keepin' everybody honest

 

Mud Pup,

Actually what happened is Jim designed his own long tubes a couple years back and had them on his '99. He improved upon that original design which was never for sale and now he has a contract with Kooks which can obviously produce a larger quantity of headers at a reasonable price. The original JDM headers took about 40 hours to build just one set. That wouldn't be too cost effective would it ??? If you want pictures of the original set I can provide them for you. If you want to put on mild steel headers that will last a couple of years at best than be my guest.
Just keepin' everybody honest.

 

Why is it that some people just post ***** before they do any real research on the issue?

 

Because they can.

 

SVTROB -

How is it that stainless produces more HP? The difference in power that Jim is posting versus what I got from my Lightning performance headers is enough to make me change mine out.

 

The JDM long tube headers do look sweet, I will be getting a set in a couple of weeks. I guess my Bassani coated shorty headers will be for sale if anyone wants them. I think about half of what they cost new would be a fair price, they have about 6k miles on them.

Bill