I decided to take a look at these. For $314 and stainless, they look pretty well constructed. I measured the pipe lengths and they are within .75" of being equal. Should flow much better than OEM.

I decided to ceramic coat them to reduce radiated heat and any chance of corrosion. Going to install in the next week or so and will dyno with pre/post install #'s

 

nice man. i had them on my car and i loved them. good luck w. the install. i felt like i got a good gain from them from the butt dyno

 

Thanks. Why did you take them off? Are you selling the car?

 

Cool deal. It'll be interesting seeing the before and after numbers.

 

yea, im getting rid of the car and just have them laying around...

 

Great to heard that feedback

 

You probably already knew this, but make sure to clean up the threads on the O2 bungs. Depending on the thickness of the coating, there is a good chance that the O2 sensors may cross thread and that would be a pisser.

 

Yeah, I threaded the plugs they came with and they went in fine. The coating is only .0015"-.002" thick but an excellent thermal barrier. Pretty amazing stuff.

 

i think i was the only one w/ the ichiba products and people never heard of them either until now...

 

Got them installed today. Was a 5 hour job for the installer. Very tight in there with lots of stuff to move and get out of the way before you can even get the old manifolds out. Glad I didnt attempt this myself with jackstands. Even my mechanic said he didnt know how anybody could even do it without a hoist.

Impressions? So far, so good but havent really been able to get into it too hard because the coating needs a few heat cycles to cure before you subject it to full throttle temperature. But I can already tell the midrange pull is much better and it just revs more quickly. Hard to explain, but the exhaust actually sounds more mellow and smooth than before. If you look at the pix, you can see how restricted the stock manifold exits are. Only 1.5" diameter (1.76 sq.in area)! The header collector is 2.25" (3.97 sq. in. area) or 2.25X the cross-sectional area of the stock setup. Ill dyno next week to see if they actually do anything for power.

 

the stock headers are very restrictive if you plan to stay N/A you get some good gains... give a review once you get on it. plan to dyno it anytime soon?

 

Just an update. I still plan on doing the post install dyno, but my baseline dyno shop's dynojet went TU with a software file corruption. They hope to get it back up and running this week.

After 2 weeks with the headers on, no issues at all. Definitely more pull all the way from 3K on up. Cant really say any low end was lost because the 5AT's suck down there anyway. Dyno will tell all. No error code light, but with headers, testpipes and Stillen catback, expect to be quite lean. So next step will be TS reflash because I'm done modding this car now. The wife wants it when I get tired of it and Im getting close.

Next stop. Used M45 sport in a year or so.

 

just subscribing to see what the dyno difference is

 

I know I've been lagging on this one, but between work, the dyno going dead at Carb connection, and the throttle position sensor going out on my FJR last week, been busy getting other stuff fixed. Will try to get scheduled next week after my work trip to Oregon.

I can say that after a month with these headers, they are working well with no fitment or performance problems at all. Good seat of the pants power gains. For $650 installed, hard to beat.

 

If anyone still gives a sheit, I finally got the car in to dyno it after the headers. It hit 234 RWHP/223 TQ, so only gained 5.1 WHP and 3.3 TQ. Not as much of a gain as I hoped, but a gain is a gain I guess.

The car was running at 13.1 A/F before and is now at 14.2, so a TS reflash to give it a bit more fuel will probably add a few more ponies, maybe get up to 240 RWHP. I will be happy with that on a N/A 03 5AT sedan. Especially since the car baselined at 211HP/203TQ bone stock.