For all of you who've done a longtube header install, would you do it yourself again? I want to do Pacesetter longtubes and a y pipe but I'm not too sure if I should even try it myself. I've never done anything big like this on a car before.

 

Hard to say. It was a royal pain in the ***, but i just jumped into it with not much car experience. I probably wouldnt want to do one again, but if i had to, it would definatly be easier the 2nd time around.

 

The real question is: Would you let some moron perform the work on your car?

Hell the person that owned my ta before me always took it to a mech to get worked on. Ya, there were 6 new spark plugs in it and 2 original.

 

Well a header install by a shop can get expensive real quick. I did mine myself and it was a pain but there is nothing really technical about it. After I got my whole exhaust setup, I took it into a shop to have a pair of cats. welded in my y-pipe and out of curiousity, I asked the shop owner how much a header install would cost. He said he charges customers anywhere from 600-800 depending on the level of difficulty and problems encountered. Do a search, there are alot of posts and writeups covering this topic and they can help you properly do a header install and save yourself a few bucks as well.

 

id def do it urself, its not very hard to do just a major PITA and long time to do it.
and id u need an tips insites thats what we are here for

My LT install was the first major job i did on my car, got the headers in less than a day except it took alot longer b/c of wrong y-pipe

 

Some sponsors here might not appreciate this but if you can't do the wrenching yourself keep it fairly stock. Trying to get a shop to mod the car will either be a lesson in extreme frustration due to their gross incompetence and resistance to what you want, OR if you find a good shop the install is going to cost eaily as much as most mods because many worthwhile projects can be time consuming and they have to cover overhead and such so expect to pay probaly $60-100 an hour easily depending on location.

Maybe you should try to frequent the Brew City Muscle board or something and try to find a "mentor" or experianced guy willing to help you for less than a shop rate. There are a fair number of enthusiasts who get good with their vehicle of choice and do some wrenching for mod money, of course you have to be careful and not let just anyone work on it but this can be a good compromise between not doing it yourself and not paying shop rates. I will be doing a few sets of gears this year for friends mostly to help pay for tools not to make money, a lot of guys do such things.

 

I did an as&m Header install, and if you have friends... get them to help! it makes the time go by a lot easier, plus you have someone to bring you to the hospital if you clip a finger off...
no matter what, with our cars its going to be a major PITA... but the real question is... would you do a cam install yourself ;-D

 

This is some great info in my opinion. If you want to mod an Fbody you need to learn to work on it yourself. The more you mod these cars the more they break down or give you issues. You've got to be able to know how to fix them or it'll get real expensive real quick taking it to a shop.

 

i installed my FLP longtubes, all i had ever done to a car before that was change the oil. there were times when i felt like just sending it to a shop to get finished, but i stuck with it and got it done myself. not easy, but a good confidence builder.

 

It's nothing difficult that requires precision like doing rockers or something... it's mostly just plain and simple wrenching. Just take your time, and keep yourself organized. The hardest part is taking off the old headers... from there putting everything in should be fairly simple after that. BEst method is to tilt the engine. by removing the motor mount bolt, and then jack the motor up... slide the header in and vice versa... shouldn't take more than 20mins to get both headers in. LT's that is.

 

Done it before would do it again. A friend who's done it before would probably be helpful. Just make sure and take your time- don't commit to having your car done by a certain time or you'll be working on your car in the morning, catching a ride to school in the afternoon, and working at night like I had to. That was a bad Monday...

 

I help out fellow f-body people with installing mods. I dont charge them any thing as long as they are there with me to help out, and learn at the same time.

 

To those who say it's a must you do your own work to your f-body that's BS. If that was the case alot of F-body speedshops, mechanics, etc would have no job and there would be alot of screwed up cars that stay screwed up because someone took on a project they werent ready for but because EVERYONE should do there own work itll only stay messed up or get worst. I work on outboards and diesels all day long. I have no desire to come home and start wrenching again. Most of the work on my Mustang was done by me. This time around I dont plan on dedicating as much labor as I did for the Stang. Now I dont even have the tools or place to do my own work even if I wanted to. All I'm saying is it's your car. You shouldnt blindly trust anyone to work on it (been burnt there before) without having knowledge about what you want done, why you want it done, how it needs to get done, and can the mechanic get it done the right way and stand by his/her work. To everyone that does all thier own mods my hats off to you but I dont feel anyone should feel down on themselves because they cant, dont, wont, do thier own work.

 

Listen to this man.. he knows what he is talking about! My friend and I installed the headers on my car and on his LS1 on the same wkend, with no prior experience. We struggled for so long trying how to figure out how to get them ine until we decided to tilt the motor and it worked like a charm. Headers installs are a PITA - no way around that, but its a huge confidence builder once you are done, esp. that moment when you turn the car on with no y-pipe on to check for leaks (i was half tempted to leave it that way hahaha)

 

I just finished changing out a blown head gasket, new headers, and x-pipe. I had never done any maintenance on my car before. The only reason I did it this time was because I had an enclosed 2 car garage instead of the old dirt driveway I use to have. So, that just tells you how mechanically unfamilar I was with the car. I bought the Kook's headers and they fit like a dream. I also went ahead and changed out the motor mounts because I read of a lot of people not doing that and having rubbing issues. I can see why now, real close on the clearances. I had to remove the sterring shaft on the driver's side to get them to fit, no jacking up of the motor, went in from the bottom with a sigle jackstand extended all the way sitting on the ground, no blocks or anything to make it higher. One other thing I had to do on the driver's side to make everything fit was delete the factory oil cooler. Make sure you delete this, if you have it, BEFORE installing the headers. I didn't and it was a pain to remove it with them in there. The passenger side I had to jack the motor up. Didn't have to remove the starter and same position on the jack stand.

All-in-all, I would do it again. I had fun doing it and learned a LOT! I know on the header install it won't help much, but if you ever have any other technically question about the car, refer to Shoebox's website. To me, during my head gasket project, it was the LT1 bible. Doing it yourself also makes it sound that much better in the end.