im installing them right now, whoever said that you have to dimple the the driver side was right. actually dimple is an understatement. it took me almost 5 hours just to do the drivers side. i HAD to drop the steering column. anyways this post was mainly just to vent about how unpleased i am about the fit of my $500 headers.

david

 

Did you have the 1 5/8 or the 1 3/4 headers?

 

The newer 4-into-1 SLP design headers are all like that unless your car has good motor mounts if you are lucky from what I've seen and heard. The old Tri-Y's fit perfect without any problem at all, they were also about $800-1K though in 1992! There is more than enough room in my GTA and my Firehawk...

 

o yea i have the 13/4 inch i meant to include that in the first post, i guess thats just how stressed about it i was.

 

yeah, i ended up grinding down my steering shaft so that everything would fit right. not sure if it was a mistake or not, but it did the trick.

-brian

 

sorry to hear about your unpleasant install!!

 

ok-heres the trick-i have installed 8 or so sets of these and this will get it every time. when you have the steering column base retaining plate loose and pulled away from its mounting spot, as well as the upper column to underdash bolts either loose or removed take a die grinder or rattail file if your so inclined and slot the holes that the bolts go thru on that baseplate. you really only need to remove enough baseplate sheet metal to allow you to shift the steering column about 1/4 inch towards the drivers side, but you could slot more, if ya had to. i have never had to remove much more than that, old motor mounts or new. you get the clearance you need and will avoid all that troublesome and icky ford tool, um, i mean hammer work on them new headers.

 

this just goes to show how looks can be decieving... anyone that looks under the hood of a 3rd gen would right off say that the drivers side would be the easiest to install, yea right. i just put the passenger side in and im not lying when i say that it took about 1 try and 30 seconds to slip the header down into place. i also think that whoever designed our cars had a personal problem with whoever designed the ratchet...man there is nowhere for a rachet to work.

david

 

building strong fingers for a better tommorow :rockon:

 

i tried to get at the three mysterious bolt holes to elongate them, but i could not get the "base" out of the way. ot sure what the problem was, but i have tried it a couple times with no success. and, no, i'm not an idiot , i'm pretty good at finding my way out of these problems...

-brian

 

mysterious? :lala:

 

yeah.

 

never met a mysterious car part.

 

i was really thinking about getting the SLPs for my 408 but now i think i'm going to get the hooker 2055s. i really don't know after hearing all these horror storys about SLP. i have the motor out and im putting new motor mounts in, but i really don't know if they are worth the $700 for the coated ones.

 

now that i finally got them in i dont think it was that bad. its just all of the unexpected stuff that pisses me off. i sure hope that they were worth the frustration..

david

 

Someone should tell SLP not to dimple their headers, seems their qualified installers dont take the time to install the expensive headers without denting them. In the end I went a touch slower after all that BS, it was well worth the $ and the one year run around I got about their performance guarantee and their wonderful customer service

 

huh? so i dont get it. its sarcasm im guessing. you mean you put them in yourself after they put in a dented set, but you took longer to install them? or, they put in a set which included dents after they were finished with the install? or you saw higher et's after the dented headers went in? call me ignorant. but it seems you were in the perfect spot to tell em not to ding up someones new headers (yours), correct? :lala: :lala:

 

I dont have a driveway, I park on the street and its my only ride and since I dont have the tools and it was winter I let them do the install at the Nj facility. After 4 days to install the headers, them breaking my Made For You wirelooms, them replacing my fan switch which they replaced free of charge I found out they dented the headers to make them fit. Then after going 13.521 thru manifolds I ran numerous times and the best ET I could manage in similar conditions on similar 60fts was 13.608. Being unhappy with my investment I inquired about their performance guarantee and they spewed fourth stuff about my car having too many miles, timing chain stretching, being out of tune and how I skipped a step that if I did a cam Id notice gains with the headers blah blah blah. They tap danced around the issue and made me hang on a year before saying Im beat and they wont honor their guarantee. You live and you learn I guess, but it was an expensive lesson where I could have used the $ elsewhere...

 

hey-look on the bright side, the headers will be there if you ever freshen up the powerplant. youll be needing them then, right? sux about the f()ckstory install from them. i didnt know that they even had a guarantee like that and ive ordered and installed a bit more than a few. :rockon: :rockon: