I was originally told by my mechanic that the best way to go about custom headers is to shell out $2000 and have custom ones built by Kooks. Seeing as that clearly was not going to happen, I decided to man up and make them with some help from a friend.
Parts needed:
Jegs 1 3/4 header weld up kit- $90.00
2 collector flanges $15.00
2 header flanges $50.00
Total $155.00
The first step in this was to bolt up the header flange and cut a few pipes roughly to where the collector would be.
The next step was to measure, cut, and fit each section of each bend in the pipe.
Next step was to hammer the pipes into the shape of the port on the flange and tack each pipe into place.
Interesting side note: The size of the new header pipe is the same as the exhaust pipe on an Alfa Romeo Spider.
Now that all the pipes were fitted and tacked it was time to remove the header to properly weld all the pipes and collector together.
Welding (MIG) is now complete after 2 full days of work... now time for the other side
Repeat steps 1-4 by surrendering another 2 days of your life to this project, and the other side is complete
Primed using super hi temperature paint (6 coats)
Painted with a high temp black gloss (3 coats)
Waited 48 hours before installing the headers back on the car
Once the paint had been baked on by warming the car up then waiting 20 minutes and repeating. However after doing this, most of the glossy coat had been turned to smoke and the finish was fairly dull.
Parting words: Header fabrication is a pain in the ass, but one that is worth saving $1800 have
Also always use gloves even when simply grinding a pipe. Otherwise you could end up with fingermeat like I did :(
On the bright side it didn't go to the bone and healed within a week
