BlackbirdWS6

OK I got my shoppin list all done, basically doing heads/cam/LT's.....now my dad and I plan on taking everything off and then do the hooker long tube install first with a lot out of the way. now, my car is a 97 TA and I need to know what I will need to have the car run to get me to a place to have it tuned and dynoed(maybe 15 miles). I plan on taking the car after the LT install to a mufflex near me to have a custom Y-pipe made with O2 bungs. What issues besides a noisy car am I going to have to deal with? Runnin no O2's will make the car run like crap right? I dont want to foul plugs or mess stuff up. Trying to clear things up a bit.....Everything else will be installed properly but my main issue is running the stock pcm tuning on a heads/cam open headers setup until i get everything with the exhaust finished and straightened out. I think a mail order tune would be a waste in a sense since I plan on going for tuning later but then again I dont want to damage anything. I'm scratching my head on this one so I can pull it off doing it myself(will make me feel good). advice would be greatly appreciated

BlackbirdWS6

cmon guys, i need a little help. and if ur gonna ask. I did a search and found quite a bit of info but its all over the place sometimes and it doesnt match up.

shoebox

Tip: don't put new O2s on until your headers have been burned in.

TedH

If it were me, and I planned on primarily street use, I would go with some carb compliant headers instead of Hooker long tubes, and I would have them coated.

BlackbirdWS6

why would carb compliant ones be a better choice? The car should run just fine with the LT's and everything programmed correctly...minus ground clearance right? If I come off as arrogant or throwing your info back in your face I apologize. I'm told I sound like an *** when i type online. Thanks

Injuneer

If you are running LT's, why not buy them with the O2 bungs already wedled in, and then have them coated. You want the bungs in the collectors, as close to the primaries as possible, not back in the Y-pipe. The further they are from the engine, the more problems you are going to have with keeping them hot enough to work correctly.

If you have the O2 bungs in the LT's when you install them, then you can drive the car to Muflex (about 40 miles from where you are) or to a shop for a tune. It may run poorly without the correct tune, but at least the O2 sensors will keep it from running excessively rich, not only fouling plugs, but washing the lubrication off the cylinder walls and doing some damage.

As Rob noted, there is some concern being expressed regarding possible damage to the O2 sensors from newly coated headers..... just a suspicion at this point, but it isn't unusual to see people post that they just installed coated headers and they are getting trouble codes for "slow O2 sensor response". Hence, the suggested "burn in" on the headers, before putting the O2 sensors in. In your case, since it might be harmful to run without the sensors, and with the stock tune, you might want to throw an old set of sensors in the headers on startup, and plan to replace them when you get the tune done.

Just curious... how are you going to avoid the NJDMV mobile inspection team, so they don't notice you have no EGR, no AIR, no cats, no after-cat O2 sensors, etc? I've stopped driving my car on the "street" because of them.

RE AND CHERYL

As tough as NJ is on emissions, why are you taking it all off your car? It will never pass a visual inspection much less the sniffer test.

As far as if it will run good enough to get it to be tunned, how big a cam are you using? If it's too big, it might not run for beans until you get the tunning close.