So I ordered a set from Byun on LS1tech.com. They should be arriving Friday, and Ill try installing them Friday afternoon/evening depending on what time they arrive. Any tricks of the trade?

ive read that jacking the car up or using a lift to install them front eh bottom is very helpful. Anyone have anything to say on that?

what about on the lifting of the motor mounts, is this a must do or not?

ive done mids on a 3rd gen which sucked. but yea...any tips/tricks are greatly appriciated.

*also the motor only has about 7 months of use on it since rebuilt and under 10k miles on it. So Im hoping the exhaust bolts wont be AS hard to bust loose as the 3rd gen ones were hah.

 

buy a can of PB blaster, start spraying the header bolts couple days ahead. Jacking the car up does help, using a lift would be a lot easier though. both of mine went in from the top if i recall. Had to take off the valve covers, but they went in alright.

 

i would get some 1 inch arp bolts for added insurance

and please get oem gaskets from the dealership

 

yea have the OEM ones I was told the copper ones form pacesetter suck!

so putting the car up is mainly for y-pipe and o2 and plug wire purposes?

 

No their paper ones suck, copper works great if you seal it

 

This is how I did it. Just put the car on mid-level jackstands and remove the valve covers. They slip right in.

I used EVERYTHING that came with the Pacesetter's and ran them for a long time without ONE leak. Don't let people scare you away from their stuff. It's all good.

 

The ones I did with a friend, we couldnt even get a bolt through the second hole from the front on the driver's side flange. It wouldnt go through the header cause they bent the tube too close to it. We had to slop the hole out to make it work. That's some pretty incredible quality control.

 

speaking from experience here, this is NOT a must, however I HIGHLY recommend it, because you will save yourself a lot of headache, and scratches in your coating if you just take the 5-10 minutes per side and unmount the engine. way easier that way. the only difficult part about undoing a mount is jacking the engine to the point there is niether weight nor lift on the mount... (so the bolt can slide out) which is easy with patience.

 

ok so how far are we talking abotu jacking the motor up? also doesnt the tranny need to be undone for that as well?

 

as for the copper gaskets. Ive heard both good and bad on those. Guy from BYUNSPEED said the gaskets that come in the kit are trash, I did order a set of GM Gaskets thou, so in either case Im set. Ive used several different kinds on my 3rd gen and blew them all, went back to GM and they sealed the best. Part of the problem was the header itself, but not totally the problem. Now ive also seen drag guys use soda/beer cans to make a set of gaskets when they were in a pinch and they actually sealed pretty well...so yea

 

I ended getting both in from the top drivers side dropped in like nothing pass. side was a bitch finally wiggled it in from the top took of alternator, and the valve cover...

I tried jacking up the car and putting it in from the bottom, I had my car so friggin high I was under here couldn't get it in and pussed out(had a friend's car fall of a jack and almost crush me lol so that was not fun).

 

if they'll drop in from the top that works great and ill do it in my driveway...but otherwise i might wait till my brother can give me some space in his shop. Is the AC compressor and lines any of an issue, becuase I dont have the lines, and I can drop the compressor pretty fast without a problem...I also might be having a replacement one comming so itll have to be droppe dout anyways hah.

dude that is crazy abotu the car...glad you are alright man!

 

you only unmount one side at a time and tip the engine. you can really only tip it so far, but youll be surpised how much 1" off the mount will give you... and if thats not enough just jack more. I had mine almost to the point of hitting the steering shaft on the other side, and i had ALL KINDS of room to drop it in.

Also i managed to get the driver side in without doing this. Id say try slippping them in for about a minute and if no go, jack the motor up. dont force anything.

 

im in the middle of my header install and i cant get either side to fit in. i have done everything that everyone has mentioned, taking valve covers off, steer knuckle is un boted, dipstick is out, alternator is off. i dont know what im doing wrong. dont mean to hijack the thread but that you might want to hear this.

 

I did the driver side from the top, and passenger side from the bottom. Driver side I didnt have to take anything off, passenger side the starter and oil dipstick had to come off. then with the car high enough to get the right angle I had a friend feed it up through the bottom whil I was pulling it up through the top.