Fabspeed Headers Group Buy!

Yeah Baby! Another one sees the light!!! I used my Fabspeeds as a template......and expensive template, but they sure as heck aren't what is on the car now. More news on this later.

 

The stock headers have shields we all know. The stock headers have problems we all know. The Fabspeeds do not have shields. The Fabspeeds have not had a major design flaw as the stock ones. When I purchased my headers from Fabspeed I had all intentions of coating them and making some shielding for other components within the engine area. To me that would be common sense. My mechanic will not install any aftermarket headers without some type of coating or wrapping. The thought of installing the Fabspeeds without some type of coating just doesn't make sense seeing the stock ones had a shield on them.




Buy the headers, coat them and shield other components----has anyone had any problems with Fabspeeds by doing this???? I certainly have not and not heard of anyone who has....

 

Has Fabspeed every done a dyno test as promised. I was interested in buying in Feb but wanted to see some performace data. They said because they would get a car in as soon as the snow meltedsince they have an in house dyno. Do they still have snow out East?

 

Thanks for the information Bob. Good Post.

 

Only in the mountains..

 

My buddies and I have all purchased the QV London rebuild exhaust manifolds, and had no problems with them. My understanding is they contract out the work, and it may in fact be done by JP Exhausts. Here is the JP Exhausts website describing the work:

http://jpexhausts.co.uk/Site/Ferrari355.htm
They use one grade higher stainless steel and one guage thicker, than what Ansa did.

Since it maintains the factory mounting flange and collector, there are absolutely no fitiment issues, and they look stock. One nice thing is they maintain the factory CO test ports, all four on each side, so if you needed or wanted to test the CO on each cylinder, you still can. That feature is lost with all the aftermarket brands.

FYI.

 

Just a point on Doc Bob’s 355 and its heat problems.

Since he’s getting 494 HP at the rear wheels he’s has a considerably greater heat rejection problem to deal with in the exhaust system than a stock 355 is ever going to see irregardless of ambient temperature. I see his as an extreme case, exacerbated by exceptionally high ambient temps, not the norm at all.

I stand by what I’ve said in other posts about header wrapping, been there, done that. Unless your headers are 321 SS, or Inconel it’s asking for trouble. Rather spend your money on lots of good quality highly reflective heat shielding and shield everything you possibly can without interfering with air flow.

 

OR maybe Bobs car in showing us in a faster time frame what will happen down the road.

 

Here's a simple fact......even if you just want the Fabspeeds to continue to look "fab" (as the Brits say) then coat them. You see from my pictures what happens when you don't coat and run naked through the streets. At least then you have killed quite possibly three birds with one stone...1) maintain the appearance (which I don't deny if great) 2) lower the radiated heat from the header into the engine bay 3) increase the efficiency of the header system, head and intake. Finished. If I was back home in Miami, this is what I would do.

My Fabspeeds were an expensive template and test toy. A friend of mine makes headers for his speed shop and others that want them. It is amazingly less complicated than you would imagine. All done on a mandrel bending program supplied with the machine or you can buy them on-line for $49.95 and design your own headers. Basically the program will work with any space constraints you may have or variables such as 1 collector or 2 collectors into 1 collector, exit type such as straight up, straight down, angled......you get the picture. The important criteria maintained by the program despite any wild variations that you toss at it is that it maintains all of the runner lengths at equal lengths and some of the advanced programs even take into consideration the heat transfer / loss in all the runners and collector and adjusts the various runner lengths to suit in order to maintain the best possible scavenging effect across all exhaust ports. AND there are options in the program for coated, wrapped, both or free air. This is why I was saying that if Fabspeed had done their research they could easy provide some significantly and vital temp values to us AND given the temp variants according to the addition of coating, wrapping or both. I believe Mr. Fabspeed's sales approach was incorrect. Something tells me that a Ferrari owner armed with temp variation data would have made a much easier and quicker semi-educated choice with much less debate. I think he underestimated our fanaticism over our cars. Did they ever answer the question on what is the overall effect of the coating they have as an option? I don't recall that they did and I'm not prepared to go back through all the posts. (my newest buddy Craig will) I would have appreciated more of an approach where the research data was readily tossed out early in the forum inclusive of data from a stock set of manifolds.......something like......this is the surface temp of a stock manifold, this is the surface temp of a naked Fabspeed, this is the surface temp of a coated Fabspeed....etc. The horsepower gain would probably take a back seat very quickly. Obviously he didn't know our true hot-button was the failure rate and subsequent expense of the OEM manifolds or his pitch would have been entirely different and come with more supportive data. The point truly worth making and the engineers reading this post will agree with a statement so dear to their hearts is, as engineers Fabspeed should have come to the forum with supportive data because any true engineering company would have already extrapolated every piece of info that we "commoners" could ever ask for. This is why they call it Research and Development. Fabspeed omitted (in my opinion) the research part of the equation and entirely believed they could market cool looking headers to people who are passionate about their cool looking cars; and that is where they stopped.

Here's a good example of a true engineering based company and machine shop (in all simplistic basic terms) I had an out-of-the-box (OOTB) problem with one of my four HRE two piece wheels. One of them had a distinctive wobble in it that we could see when we balanced the wheels. When I told them about it they were shocked. I shot a video and sent it to them. Four days later they told me to send all 4 back at their expense. What they had discovered in that short 4 days was a defect in the alloy (the base material) for the spun rim and that the rim wasn't stressed equally and as a result the weaker area was stressed more under loading but not while static. By virtue of proper identification of batches and shop runs they could identify every little detail right from the alloy used, which supplier it came from, what run of wheels it was used in AND what customers or wholsalers ordered from that batch. At the end of the day they were able to narrow down the problem because of alloy research that they had performed even before selling the wheels to the open market. This is an indicator that they had all the data necessary to make a critical engineering decision before and after the sale. They were very stand-up guys and supplied me with the equivalent wheels in a 3 piece design (without wobble). So kudos to those after-market guys that actually work from an engineering platform and not just chunking out great looking goodies and bobbles that may or may not perform as advertised.

 

Oh Doc !!! You want a HUGE !!! I'm over it. You called me your newest buddy. Friends now!!! LOL There is know no one I stay mad at, LIFE is to short and BOOM your dead. I like reading FACTS and PROOF. If you got them I'm in , pics and dyno sheets help alot around here to. I really want to know about your engine setup.

 

Maybe hes running twin turbos.

 

Nope. TT project is for next year. Already in the planning. The hint is a few posts above. You can easily gain 40hp with methanol; 70 - 110hp with mild nitrous and then silly power over 600hp with TT and STILL zero engine mods. Google boys, Google! Bandwidth is abundant and the nights are long!(directly proportionate to your Wife's patience)

 

Yes but how long is your engine going to last?

 

Perfect picture! This is what coated headers (in SS) will always look like. Is it teflon or ceramic that they gave you? The "milky color looks like ceramic. Telflon takes on more of a satin silver look at ay which point it makes no sense to go with high-polished SS and in fact you may as well back down your "visual requirement" to mild steel and replace them once every 2 years.....still cheap in comparison to the OEMs.

To find out what the Hot Rodders to to keep their headers nice and shiney you can find several threads. And we thought F-car owners were fanatical! Most of the reading that I thumbed through leaned toward mild steel headers that are chromed. This seemed to be the preferred combination over stainless steel. Their reasoning was quite simple as well.........stainless steel has many different metallurgical proprieties or elements throughout the steel and some take on different colors than others. When you look at my Fabspeeds up close you can clearly see that there are areas (very much sectionized) that have reacted very much different to the heat than other areas. So the premise of Hot Rodders is to lean toward "chroming" since it is a uniform finish with less inherent elements than a metal. Chromed headers was a big thing at one time when I was a high school kid building performance Camaro's and Challenger's for my friends and I and when I think back I can never remember having any discoloration problems and believe me.....we would have noticed because those $60.00 (at the time) chromed Hooker Headers were the talk of the town and EVERYONE wanted to see them, so you made damn sure that they were always polished before hitting the street. Thank God no one ever noticed the rusted out exhaust pipes from the collector back. Those were the good ol' days.

Maybe we made too many predetermined assumptions about the Fabspeeds. But damn! They sure look freaking good! Especially on a shelf adored with a collection of F1 cars and a checkered flag. (I love that picture) Maybe this is where these headers really belong and what we enthusiasts SHOULD have been looking for were mild steel headers finished in chrome and coated ONLY on the inside. (this is what the Rodders do.) And here I always thought that these Hot Rod guys were just a bunch of old men wanting to pimp their chopped up '33 Fords with big rubber on 15" wheels. There's a lot to learn from "old guys".

As for the headers that I had custom made using (to a certain extent) the Fabspeed headers for our visual design cues, I went with mild steel and wrapped the hell out of them. I also wrapped the cat replacement pipes and the exhaust down-pipes exiting the silencer. When we design the headers we removed the air injection system as well. Dimex has had better results from customers who have done this and I would agree. Also replace the bypass value with the Challenge "spacer" and you're hooked up! The next experiment on the boards is removing the bypass Y pipe entirely and running a straight pipe header from the collector back. I may get at this in the next few weeks. I have already ordered the manifold gaskets from my buddy Daniel as a precursor to my enthusiasm. Stand by for info on this experiment.

And yes....I will start a separate topic on my mods......most of them anyway......some mystery still has to remain.

 

Jay Dude.....as you know "A picture's worth a thousand words." here in the land of the Shade Tree Mechanics, pictures are more like a Mastercard commercial....."Priceless".

Anyway.....I see red plug wires sneaking into the camera view.....who's product did you ultimately use, and I say "ultimately" because I'm sure they cost you more in monthly internet charges to research than it did to actually buy them. I've been down that road. And they look larger than the OEM 5mm maybe they are 7 or 8mm? I went with a 7mm product from a German company (can't remember the name) and I don't like the boot fitments at the spark plug end....not that it matters since they work fine but still something in my gut tells me that there is something better out there somewhere. You know that feeling?????

 

Very good question! I think we will be pleasantly surprised. Ferrari are drivetrain experts and something in my gut tells me that those little 3.5's are put together with exactly tolerances that make them a very hardy and possibly bullet-proof to a sane level. Just removing the valve cover reveals a sight of engineering marvel that you could stare at for hours. Poking your finger around in there and stick a caliper in to measure a few dimensions.....not that those tell you anything but you can get an idea of the exact trueness of the machining......wonderful stuff for an F-car enthusiast.

I have experience with 550 and 575 drivetrain dismantling but never the pleasure of the 3.5 laying all over my bench top. You want to see a monster of a block with engineering and machining that will blow your mind......the 575 is incredible. Stunning! This is what (in my heart) makes Ferrari the car that I want to own even in spite of some of the seemingly idiotic things they do or the questionable quality of their collateral parts that they don't manufacture or the questionable reliability factor or even the stupid "sticky" interior parts. When you "get inside" one of their engines or gear boxes your heart just races and you can IMMEDIATELY tell that this is where they put the greatest part of their engineering mindshare. I always have this mental picture of the Maranello engineering department where all of the interior design engineers and the aerodynamic body styling engineers slowly, one by one, migrate with curiosity to the drivetrain engineering division and they never return. Their once steaming cups of coffee abandoned to cool and their screen savers seemingly in an eternal on-mode until some greener-than-grass engineer is hired fresh off the street to fill the void.

 

+1,
I'm still wondering how they grind a 355 inlet camshaft. An absolute work of art.

 

Doc,
The wires a likely from www.kingsborne.com The stock wires are 7mm, and Kingsborne's are also 7mm. They can do any number of colors, and will even do 8mm (which I previously had) but 8mm is an awful tight fit under the cam covers and through the outlet in the back end of the cover with the foam block! 7mm simply fits better. Kingsborne uses the exact same oem Beru connectors on each end, not sure of the wire manufacturer. They do use a slightly updated Beru connector for the plug end, it has 4 sealing surfaces versus the single sealing surface of the original wires. They cost around $395 per set, used to be $250, until they found out what Ferrari charges!

 

Thanks guys! I'll look into it. I am currently using a custom made set using MSD components. Really nice components but the spark plug ends could be a better fit. However, the wire and coil caps are super!

 

Please let me know where you got the Kingsbournes....Im thinking of replacing mine soon. I hear they are good....if anyone knows of better please sound in.

 

You have to either buy them direct, or off their Ebay auctions. All the resellers of their products sell them for list price or upcharge. Their Ebay auctions only offer a slight discount. It's a good product, and a great price, even at $395. Ferrari charges up to $200 for each wire by comparison.

 

From the Kingsborne website you can buy them assembled as a set for $395.00. Or you can buy the pieces individually and build them yourself for $215.00 total. The choice is yours. I will buy the components and assemble them myself since it is in fact a very easy thing to do. However, a few more hours of research is necessary because I have seen these components elsewhere at much better prices. ACCEL, Mallory, MSD.....I'm not sure which one.....but I'm on the hunt now. More to follow and certainly under a new discussion topic. My Spider sense is tingling!