I got the headers bolted up, and the instructions tell you to remove plugs 4-8 to get the headers in. Now comes the time to put the plugs back...

Plugs 4 and 8 went in fine...

Plug 7 won't go in at all...the primary is blocking it...do I just need to get a shorter plug for that cylinder?

Plugs 5 and 6 were a pain to get started but I got em screwed most of the way in...I can't for the life of me find a way to tighten these things...I don't have enough clearance to get a spark plug socket over them, and I can't use the angled (12 point) end of a combination wrench, it won't go "deep" enough to get a grip on the hex. I anticipate having this same problem on the #7 plug once I get a shorter plug and actually get it in there...basically there's no room for a plug socket, and a wrench won't work...am I gonna hafta get creative and fabricate some kinda ghetto style spark plug tool or does anyone have any ideas? I'm sure alotta other people have installed em, how'd you get the plugs in? Best I can think of is get a nice cheap short 1/2" drive 5/8" socket (1/2" drive so it can slip the whole way over the spark plug), and try using a grinder or somethin to make a hex head at the other end so I can grab onto it with an open end wrench...basically like a really short spark plug socket that you can't actually use a ratchet on, just slip over the plug and use a wrench...

On a side note, the quality of these headers as far as I can tell seems ok, especially with how cheap they are. Besides some plug access problems of course. One thing to watch for though, they have the O2 bungs welded on, but the holes drilled in the collectors are maybe 1/8" too small (at least on mine), so I couldn't get the sensors in. Had to carefully enlarge the holes without damaging the threads on the bungs so I could slip the O2 sensors in...just somethin to be aware of...it added a good bit to the install time when I thought I was in the home stretch...

Anyway, how do I get these plugs in?

 

I guy told me yesterday that he bought a special socket that sounds exactly like you described for putting in the plugs with his BBK headers. I think he said it was sold by SLP but I am not sure. Try Summit to see if they sell it or check with SLP. It does it exist, I just don't remember the brand for sure. Good luck with it.

 

Just put pacesetters on my buddy's 97 and now his car runs like ****. Be warned also that the cross over tube for the egr doesnt mate into the headers like it should...before you intall them if you havent already you might want to take a die grinder and open up the hole on the header a little. We put our plugs in before installing the headers and were just very careful

 

that shouldn't be a problem for me, I deleted EGR and AIR while I was at it. Couldn't find the right size bolt/plug to plug the air tubes, and the AIR bungs on the headers were the wrong thread (oops, another quality issue). I "glued" a stack of 9 pennies in the bung using copper RTV, then cut the flared end off the original AIR tube and removed the nut, and cranked it down as hard as I could on the bung, forcing it onto the wrong threads to hold the pennies down...that's my ghetto AIR delete plugs