99transamgirl

iTrader: (1)

my shorty headers are touching the frame on the passenger side where the two flanges bolt together, when the car is torqued from turning. It is about 1 cm away from the frame. I can slide a piece of fabric heat sheild between the pipe and the frame.It rattles on that side of the car every time the weight shifts. The shop said they knew it would do that but didn't tell us until my husband went and complained. they said we could either bend the headers, I got ceramic coated by the way, shift the engine over about half an inch or cut part of the frame. What do you guys think? I don't want to mess up a nice set of coated headers and I'm worried about shifting the engine over a little that it might off set some things with the transmission and cause problems there. I would rather cut and weld a notch in the frame than to do the other two. Do I have any other options???? I have a 305 that I had rebuilt with a new block last year. I don't think the engine mounts are new. I beleive the guy said he used our old ones b/c they were in good shape. not sure if this would make a difference.

tony_cogliandro

iTrader: (3)

what kind of headers?

99transamgirl

iTrader: (1)

I have the flowtech ceramic shorty headers. They look great and sound great and there are no leaks. just a little too close the the frame on the passenger side. what gets me is that the people said they knew it was going to make noise after fitting it but didn't tell us. it only does this when the body gets torqued when turning.

BCdawg57

iTrader: (1)

You wouldnt happen to have poly motor mounts would you?
That happened to me and switching back to rubber fixed the problem.

BulliTooth

BCdawg has the right idea, or mayb you just have old motor mounts. When i put my 2055's in i had about an inch of clearence with no rattling.

Saber

iTrader: (2)

I had the same probelm with similar headers. I had my new engine put in by a shop, and when i got it back i had a rattle when the frame would torque, usually under full throttle and turns etc... anyways since i was very unhappy with this shop and their work i had my exhaust guy, when he put on my exhaust fix the probelm for me. He originally ground away a little bit of the excess metal on the frame, kinda notching it a little bit. That fixed the probelm for a while, about a week later it was back. Probelm turned out to be the mounts, the shop had not replaced them when they switched the engine, even thought they said they had. Anways long story short with those headers you can either grind away a little of the frame(my mechanic said it wouldnt hurt anything the amount shaved off was so irrelevant it wouldnt cause problems) or replace your mounts. Chances are you had the same problem as me, worn sagging mounts were causing your engine to sit a bit lower than new mounts. Mounts raised my car up and fixed the problem. I can try and dig up a snapshot of the area for you if you would like, just PM me so i remember.

99transamgirl

iTrader: (1)

I think my mechan that rebuilt the engine put the old mounts back in.Would that keep it from touching the frame? That'd be great if that's all I have to do. underneath the car by the cat. there is only about half an inch from the pipe to the floor pan area. I'll look to see if they look old. I think they are. I just hate that the people knew it was going to rattle and didn't tell us.

Saber

iTrader: (2)

They dont know its going to touch,every set of headers is different. Flowtechs are not going to have the fit of Hookers. Its not that they knew it would rattle, its probably that they wanted to save time or money, for you or them. I think its dumb to take out an old engine from a 91 camaro all original and put in a new one without replacing the mounts. id rather pay the 30$ for new mounts before the new engine goes in rather then replacing them later and having to lift the engine again. Replacing the mounts fixed my problem, but i tried the temp fix first(notching the frame) it worked for a bit, then same probelm. Had to pay to get new mounts, but no labor cause i went after the engine installer and placed my foot in his ***. If your mounts are original im almost positive that replacing them will fix your problem, it did for me.

99transamgirl

iTrader: (1)

Thanks guys, I'll check them tonight.

BCdawg57

iTrader: (1)

id rather bend a header tube than replace mounts again.
but i wouldnt.

99transamgirl

iTrader: (1)

how hard is it to replace the motor mounts with the engine in the car?
i'm still going to look under at them but I drove over to the mechanic who did our engine and he said he put new ones in last year. I'm almost positive he said he reused ours b/c they looked fine. anyway he said to bend the headers and not touch the frame.

BCdawg57

iTrader: (1)

Its not hard as long as you have time and lots of patience, and some sweat.

Youll have to jack the motor up one side at a time, and remove the bolts for the clamshells. This is a pita becaue the nuts on the bolts are inside the kmember. They arent hard to get off, (as long as you have a magnet to fetch them when they fall). But they are a pita to get back on. I used some rtv to help stick the bolts to the wrench and so on. There should be threads that go into more detail if you search.

99transamgirl

iTrader: (1)

thanks. i looked under and the passenger side mount looks a little flat and the rubber looks cracked. it looks like that even if i had new mounts the header would still be too close to the passenger side frame. it's just the flange area that is too close. my muffler area is shaking and rattling a lot. here's some pics I took.

Pocket

iTrader: (24)

Thats too close to grind some of the flange off

Since the old mounts idea is beat to death already Ill jump on the move the engine one

There shouldnt be much issue with this as the motor mounts have large holes so you can loosen them and slide the whole deal over. Additional shifting is done by enlarging the bolt holes

1/2 inch isnt much change for engine placement. All in all it equals less than a degree of change in the drivetrain which is soaked up by the U joints in your DS

If you look at your trans mount youll see it doesnt bolt to a hole, its a 1.5" slot for adjusting the angle of the trans when the mount isnt perfect

chads89ta

iTrader: (6)

what if you tried to replace the trans mount with a poly one. or a torque strap on the drivers side

99transamgirl

iTrader: (1)

The place that installed our headers called flowtech and they said to put in some poly mounts and that would fix our problem. I guess we'll try that and hopefully I can change them out myself without a lot of problems.

99transamgirl

iTrader: (1)

well, back to where I was. I thought it was o.k.l ast night. replaced the mounts, took two entire days, and now the y- pipe is touching the floor pan so it rattles more. It didn't last night but today it rattled the entire time. the converter isn't touching but just the y-pipe from it to the headers.

Pocket

iTrader: (24)

Hammer mod the floor or have an exhaust shop cut and move the Y-pipe down some

Floors and Y-pipes are alot easier to mod than frame

99transamgirl

iTrader: (1)

Thanks, my husband went back to the shop and was not very nice to the guy about the entire thing. The guy should have never let us take the car if he knew it was going to rattle and should have said hey I can fix this but it will take a little longer. he said " I told you this was too close to the frame and would rattle" the only thing he told us the day we got the car was that it was a little close but should be fine. he didn't drive the car. he also had the power steering so tight that day that the car wouldn't turn and of course they deny getting the dent put in our rear quarter panel when I had just had the car at a cruise in and detailed it. it didn't get driven until I dropped it off.

anyway, they guy is going to cut the pipe, add some and bend it down a little on Monday. the lady that owns part of the shop said he'll come in to work just to fix it. apparently he had just gotten chewed out on the phone by another customer.

IROCZ28KevinZ

iTrader: (2)

They dented your rear quarter? Man if you could prove that, I would tear that place a new one. I'd have every government agency I could get ahold of harassing them, because as we all know, people love it when the government is after them.

99transamgirl

iTrader: (1)

we know it happened there b/c the car hadn't been any where else except when I cleaned and polished it for a car show and back home but we didn't even think about looking the car over. it had only been there one day and they pulled the car in that night. know I know to look it over no matter where it's at. they deny that anything had happened to the car and we have no proof. at least we haven't had the paint done yet. we will have that in the next few months I hope.