2.7 355 headers with heat shields removed

Dave gave me these from his 95 Berlinetta. Thanks again Dave! (how many miles were on these, I don't recall)

After forever I finally got around to removing the heat shields today.

No holes in the tubes but same old story, not pretty!

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I have been wanting to do this to my original headers since I fitted the Tubi items.

We’re you able to remove the heat shielding in a way that they could be retubed and the clamshell re welded on for an OEM look?

 

I misss winter downtime

You using the flange and re-pipe it?

 

Hey Jim - cool beans

The car has 26K miles but that is suspect as there is a record of a non-functioning OD at one point....

Did you by chance smoke test these to check for any leaks?

Do you think the tubes that appear to be dented are from heat? Seeing them apart and the insulation is pretty cool

 

Those look to be heat distorted.....same as mine when I removed the heat shielding.

 

The heat shielding looks to be easily spot welded back on if that is the plan.

 

Wow... so that is what 22 year old headers look like....

I wish Tubi headers did not cost so much.

 

We had the exact same issue at Toyota, if the cats broke up and clogged the header overheated like that. They also cracked a weld 360 degrees around one tube.

recall baby LOL

 

GP headers could build you some but with higher grade than Tubi's for a lot less and with the 4-2-1 oem design. I think the price is less than Fabspeeds. They used 321 s/s. They reused my OEM heat shields.

You could use heat shields from Turbo Source which Bob had put on his.

 

In the ceramic coating header thread, F355Bob's turbo source inconel heat shields look very similar to what Tubi uses. They look very nice.

 

Thats the way I will go when I get to the 355 with the inconel shields. Those things are better then hairy ni@@les

 

My 95 will have either:

Headers by Jim Moran

or Tubi

If Jim is done by the time I need them (guessing 5 years from now LOL) then I will have his - if not, Tubi

 

Hey guys

I didn't smoke test them Dave. Maybe some holes would be revealed if I cut them apart but I don't see any holes at the moment. Just melted and deformed.

At first I was going to bend back the crimp and break the spot welds but then I thought it would take me the rest of my life so out came the plasma cutter.

You could still spot weld them and it would look pretty much OEM from the top but you could see the welds from the bottom. Another option would be to hammer over/downwards the crimp on top of the spot welds which isn't exactly like stock but would still look nice.

After looking at them, I am not going to re-tube. Even the material after the 2-1 collectors looks pretty toasty. Really if 100% original look is needed, I would just buy a new set of OEM headers. (are they available?) Mine have been on the car for 23 years so I would think another new set would do the same unless I started daily driving it.

I deleted the cats on my car so I'm also deleting the air injection system/tubes.

Going to use these to build fixtures and build new ones from scratch. Still 4-2-1.

Have to run the numbers through some programs to determine if I want to copy the original design exactly (with higher quality components) or alter tube lengths and diameters. I suspect they will end up close to original but we will see.

As for heat shields, agree the inconel ones Bob used is one good option. Or if I can find that material, do it myself. I noticed that Seca headers have what appear to be identical heat shielding to Tubi, which make me feel like that's outsourced but I cannot find who does it.

Also kind of tempted to send them to Zircotec for plasma spray ceramic. (not sure if anyone in the US does it). Still couldn't be as effective as heat shields however.

 

There is another company, Desgn Engineering that has a product called form-a-shield. I think you might have mentioned it before Jim. It looks interesting.

 

Jim, I have Tubi headers on both my 355's and a 355 I did an engine out on had the SECA headers they look similar but the SECA material is actually soft, you can press it and it dents the Tubi heat shield is stiff, feels more substantial and has surface dimples like a golf ball. Also the SECA headers appeared to be made of thinner gauge steel as they moved up and down with slightest pressure up and down (whilst still mounted to the block) at the catalyst collector.

 

Great info! Thanks guys

 

Just looked over some pics for your reference:

Seca Headers: see how the heat shielding has dents and they are not as tightly vacuum formed over the headers. Image Unavailable, Please Login

Tubi Headers heat shielding does look similar, but it is more dense and tightly formed. I'm very happy with my choice despite the cost. Im sure both do the job nicely as opposed to unshielded headers and they both retain the 4-2-1 setup.

The ports on the Tubi headers were perfectly smooth the OEM ones arent. Image Unavailable, Please Login
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I must say I am not familiar with GP? I'm interested. The only thing is that there is something mythical about having a full tubi system, and the thought of it running to redline makes my heart beat faster. That's the only thing!! All these header options are so very viable but I don't know enough about them. And they aren't a full tubi system running to redline.... Le sigh. .. still I'm interested in learning about GP. Please let me know where I can research more.

Anyways this is a great thread and I'm learning all kinds of cool things. I noticed on mine yesterday the stock headers are from ANSA. Pretty cool.

I have also wanted to learn about inconel.. wouldn't that be a great material and which headers could be made from? If I'm even considering thinking about even spending 7k on headers when my service bill is coming in an estimated at 15k alone, it better be space age, gee whiz, knock-my-socks-off exotic. Oh and it has to sound like tearing open an interdimensional rift for the banshee from hell to step through.

 

Very... Very interested in this. Please keep us posted. If I can help in any way, possibly of a guinea pig, I'd love to do so.

 

Zack, who is one of the owners of GP Headers built my set when he worked for Stainless Headers. The headers were an exact copy of the originals but made with 321s/s. The primary tubes were slightly bigger, so the OEM shields had to be modified a little. Zack was offering to build them a few years ago for around $2200 with a ceramic coating. I believe Zack didn't want to deal with the OEM shields because of the extra work involved. He offered them with the ceramic coating. If I was going to do this again and Zack couldn't be persuaded to modify the OEM shields again, I would use the Turbo Source shields.

 

Jim - I've given up on GP for two reasons:

1) I want headers built from scratch - not using some of my parts

2) I don't like to "talk" anyone into doing something. Either they do it or they don't.

 

1) I didn't know that they were reusing some of the OEM parts. I don't have a problem with using the header and collector flanges, but I would insist on all new tubing like they originally had done.

2) I wouldn't want to "talk" anyone into doing something either. These headers were so reasonably priced compared to what others were offering, I might be wrong but got the sense that it was worth their time to deal with the shields. I don' t think they realized how expensive some of their competitors headers were and they could have increased their price and made reusing the OEM shields worth it their while.

That is why I stated, if they didn't want to redo the OEM headers for an increase in price than I would put the Turbo Source shields on them.

 

Jimmym's headers were a steal for that price. If they would continue to build them for close to that with shields that is a great option.

Tubi is by far the best quality readily available header, IMO.

Paul, you could do inconel but I think it's an unnecessary, very high cost in comparison to 321 stainless.

Elliott, interesting photo. Those look much different (in a not good way ) than the Seca photo I saw online-


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One of my customers makes inconel exhaust for military copters. I know it would cost more then getting a new car. Weld x-ray clean repeat for a week or two.
They have a wicked weld treating thing also. The tubes are like 1 mm wall. Truely amazing work

 

Well it sounds like Inconel is out of the picture, and Tubi is the benchmark. INTMD8, are you going to be producing your own for others? Or just yourself?