Part two of the manifold/headers/exhaust project on my 2000 Ford Excursion 4v4 V10 Gas.

Part 1 - Manifold Removal and Stud Extractions
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...r-dummies.html

Once all the studs have been removed from the head, I spent some time cleaning up the head surfaces and vacuumed out the exhaust ports and everywhere around the front of the truck. I connected rubber tubing to the end of my shop vac and and cleaned out each port, then used scotch brite pads and some carb cleaner to clean off the surfaces. It is really important if you have been drilling, welding and cutting that you clean up well, especially down in the engine cross member area. The carnage I found there was amazing and included 3 missing sockets. I then put my front wheels back on and lowered the truck. One because I didn't want to be under it beating and prying with two wheels off and I was pretty sure I was going to need the jack stands on the rear.

Heads after cleaning - passenger side.


Drug out my instructions from Banks and gave them a read through, read a recent thread from another FTE member and looked at his pictures and decided I needed to tackle some of the heat shields before I started installing the headers.

Starter shield with a hose clamp. Be careful how you start the clamp so the tightening screw ends up where you can reach it.


Shield installed


I started on the passenger side. It is actually harder I think to install the header, even though the driver's side has many more things in the way, the passenger side header is huge and I knew it was going to be a struggle to get it in there. I tried several points of insertion and the only way is straight in over the top of the frame rail, you have to rotate it just right and then turn it when you clear the rail. This is why it's really important to make sure everything is clean. There is no way to slide these in and not drag them over the rails and cross members.

To make this fit I had to remove the hose clip that is mounted on the passenger frame rail.


I wrestled it into place and sat it on the cross member. Then took a jack stand and propped up the end to hold it closer to the proper location. It's heavy and doing this alone there was no way to support it and get a bolt started. Ahhh the bolts, just hope you have really small hands or I would recommend you get someone who does to help you. I finger threaded in the top front bolt, then the bottom rear bolt. For each of the 20 bolts I used a variety of methods to reach them. It was really a struggle to reach them all and I can't itemize what I used for each but it included open ended hand wrenches, ratchet wrenches, sockets with a variety of ratchets, extensions, swivels with a good dose of cus words and bleeding hands. About 6 of these are done completely by feel, you just cannot see them, so wearing gloves is difficult because you have to use one hand to feel the bolt and reset the wrench or socket. My biggest issue was turning space, we are talking 1/4 turn of any wrench or socket at a time, then reset. Even the ratcheted ones there wasn't enough space to pull back and keep the socket seated.


I installed all 10 bolts and decided to go ahead and tighten them (wasn't sure if I would regret this later) but I wasn't figuring out all over again what would fit onto each of them. Here is the passenger side installed. You can see where I scraped some of my top coat paint off my frame rail getting this installed.


On the driver's side you set several bolts but before you tighten it you need to reinstall the dipstick tube that you removed earlier. No pics of this process but that dipstick tube does not like to move. PITA coming out and darn near that going back in. Once you have the bottom started in the hole, (which is right behind the oil filter) then go back up top and rotate back and forth until you get it down all the way and reattach the bolt. You do need to bend it in slightly to reattach the retaining bolt. Once that is in you can install the rest of bolts and then tighten. Same foul language and rags to soak up the blood from your knuckles needed on this side. Here is the driver's side bottom dipstick location and the tubes installed.



Once they were in I took a good look at the clearance for wires and hoses. Instructions say anything within 3" but I decided to make sure nothing got melted. I used foil tape to cover anything that was in question. Then used fiberglass tape and made an additional pad for the passenger side hoses. The kit comes with two similar but smaller pads which I used to cover hoses on each side. The banks pads are secured with wires.

Here are two shots of the passenger side insulated.



And another of the driver's side.


There are two additional heat shields provided with the kit from Banks. One is for the end link bushing and fuel lines etc on the passenger side. To install this one you remove the axle vent tube from the cross member and move it to the bottom of the frame rail and secure it with zip ties. The use that bolt hole to install the front bolt of the shield. Then install the bracket into the frame rail and bolt the shield to the bracket. I had an open hole in the rail that worked for the rear bracket bolt.

Here it is installed.


The last one is a small shield that goes over the passenger side sway bar end link and I didn't install this one because I didn't have the energy to deal with having to press out the end link. Instead I used some sheet metal I had and an open hole in the frame rail in just made a small shield to cover the upper portion of the bushing. Stock it already had a outer head shield cover on it. Here is the one that you are supposed to install though.


I then took my old exhaust/cat and laid it all out on the floor beside everything new. Matched up all the parts, clamps and hangers and did some measuring to find any issues before I started installing. Still had issues but it was worth a shot. Then installed my O2 Sensor back into the new up pipes.


The passenger side one requires a longer extension added, so I took that and clipped it into the upper wiring harness before I installed the pipes. It's a really long reach.


Instructions tell you to remove 8" from the front of your stock CAT. Since I was replacing my CAT as well I already had it laid out with the rest of the parts and took a Sawzal to it and then used the dremel with a grinding stone to smooth out the edge.



Then I sat the CAT in place on the transmission cross member and supported the rear of it with a jack stand, then installed the passenger side up pipe. The flanges rotate so you can position the bolt hole where you want them, and there are conical seat flanges that are inserted into the flanges. A 3" clamp connects the front of the CAT where you cut to the rear of the passenger up pipe.



The flange bolts thread in from the top (what fun) but overall a flexible design that allows you to tweak it just where you need it.


I finger threaded in all the bolts at this point and then moved onto the smaller driver's side up pipe. The connection between the two pipes uses the smaller 2 1/2" clamp.


Then I connected both of the 02 sensors.


Next I sat the muffler into place and held with more jack stands. Have plenty on hand. At one point in this process I had all 6 of my jack stands in use, floor jack and one bottle jack (2 holding truck with 1 rear wheel off) 4 others holding various parts of the exhaust, the bottle jack holding the shock out of the way and the floor jack being used to slowly raise the muffler and CAT to get the hanger height set.


With Cat and Muffler sitting in place I could see I had a hanger placement issue between the two. Banks supplies a combination 3" clamp and hanger for this area. But my frame rail hanger was off in location by several inches. I went and got another 3" clamp and used that to clamp the joint then used the hanger clamp where I needed it to line up with the hanger.

You can see in this photo how they do not align.


Here is the problem solved.


Moved onto the tailpipe. You do need the rear tire off and the bottom shock bolt removed to give you enough wiggle room to feed it in there from the rear.


The rear of the muffler is supported with a dual hanger above it which corresponds with the front of the tail pipe, after it connects to the muffler with the banks 3 1/2" clamp.

Tail pipe dual muffler hanger.


Corresponding frame hanger.


No issues with this hanger location.

Rear tailpipe hanger - another issue. The rear tail pipe hanger to tail pipe bracket did not fit. The bracket on the banks tail pipe came in from the outside, the stock one is reversed. This caused the hanger to hit the bottom of my spring.


Solution was to remove the old hanger from my original tailpipe and weld it onto the new tailpipe in the proper location, then cut the one off that was hitting the spring. This allowed the hanger to slide in from the back side and fit fine.


I secured the rear most hanger, then used the floor jack to inch the entire exhaust up until I could connect the dual hangers. Which were the last ones to be connected. A note on those hangers. Easy way to remove them is to use a pitman arm puller.


I then went back up to the up pipes and started tightening everything down, working my back as I went and checking everything for clearance and to be sure the hangers were moving freely. The rubber hangers should be set slightly forward so they can swing back with expansion. Last thing I installed was the new Banks air housing and filter.

 

Thx again, another classic 'how-to' under your belt Sammie.

 

Nicely done Christina!
I told you those header bolts were fun fun fun. And your hands are small!
You highlighted the two items I was lucky to have help with, the dipstick, damned thing didn't want to come out OR go back in! And the right side header, my wife was able to thread it through all the obstacles from below as I guided it into place from above, I think it would be impossible to do it this way alone. Your left side heat sheild sits inside the frame rail better than mine, I might have to have another look at that little bracket's mounting on mine. I'm surprised that you had the hanger alignment issues with the Monster Exhaust system, the header kit seemed to be pretty well engineered.
Again, good job and another great how to post.

 

Well I will give Banks a pass on that, it was a different CAT not the stock one, and I have aftermarket springs on the rear, so stock it might have worked. I had to move one hanger and buy one $9 clamp. But my gut feeling on the rear hanger is whoever welded that one did it backwards. Wasn't worth griping at them about though.

Ah on that left side heat shield though. It looks so simple in my write up but it's an illusion. I am not kidding when I tell you that I laid under my truck with your photo of the one you installed, the banks instructions and read and looked at them, my frame rail for 20 minutes before I figured out how to put it up there. Still not sure I got it right. The problem with the instructions are that they tell you to remove that vent hose, but not in the same section about installing that heat shield, so it took me forever to connect the two. Finally it hit me oh I use that bolt hole, the instructions don't tell you where to bolt the rear of the bracket, so I just found a spot that worked.

 

Nice band clamp between the cat and the muff. Those are what I used for my entire exhaust system. NAPA, and they were T-304 Stainless Steel. Pretty.

Another great write up Christina.

 

Thanks and ya same stainless but got it at O'Reilly because they "take care of me" haha $9.99.

 

Awesome Job Christina, It would be interesting to have some before and after dyno numbers from this project. If you dont gain much I am not quite sure it would be worth the money and extreme toll on the body..

 

Sounds like it is worth it just to address the problematic studs.

And Cristina does no easy jobs, just read all of her write ups...sheesh!

 

Thanks. I have done a few easy ones, I just don't write those up because you guys already know how. First time I changed my own oil in a vehicle was 8 months ago, the for dummies writes up started because I needed really detailed instructions when I started working on this truck. I could always find a write up or something but they had so many things where I would say "wtf is that", remove the IAC - haha I didn't know what that was....so anyway decided to help out the dummies to follow me and write it up assuming the person doing it has never been under a truck, or on top an engine and has no idea what a U joint, IAC, MAF, or COP is

 

Read everyone of her writeups Sheeesh!! Sounds like it and actually helping are two different things thats why I said dyno numbers would be nice. Broken studs VS header gasket blow outs sound about the same to me. No doubt the cool factor is right up there just not sure if the cost justifys it. Christina do you have a final cost on this project?

 

I don't have a blown head gasket. Well no symptoms of oil or coolant where it shouldn't be, an my mileage jumped the last few days from it's low point of about 7mpg back up to 10 mpg, the nasty flutter sound on the go pedal is gone, now replaced with a rather pleasant "header growl".

Do have to agree that this wouldn't have been worth it if I didn't have 5 broken studs on my manifold already. I just couldn't see going to all the trouble to replace that, or install headers and leave the rest of rusted exhaust intact.

$2,600 added it up today, and $600+ of that was in tools - new power dremel, right angle drill, extractor, 36" ratcheting breaker bar and a ton of diamond, carbide and tungsten bits. Those hurt because they are disposable but the other tools I'm sure I will use again. The bits were because of my stupidity, had several tell me "just keep drilling" but I had to try that easy out one more time.

Just the exhaust/headers and misc items needed for the install. $1700
New Cat I got for $200 - which was a good deal. If I had just done the headers, and left the rest I would have still spent close to 2k with all the head issues that cropped up, and I do get some satisfaction in knowing that if I had taken it to a dealer I would have spent the same money and got nothing but new manifolds and studs.

 

NO No I said header gasket not head gasket Silly

 

See told you I was a dummie!

"Header" gaskets were in pretty good shape actually just was pouring out around the edges from being so loose, and at the right flange which was rusted through in one place. If you read my threads you probably saw that I rescued this poor truck from years in New England where it was seriously abused by road salt with no preventative measures by the PO.

 

I got to ask where you got the cat for $200 , the cheapest I found for a direct fit was $400....

 

A friend of friend that isn't forum mentionable, one he took off a brand new truck several years ago while he was doing a mod for the owner. Wasn't exactly brand new but had been sitting in his storage shed for 8 years and had about 100 miles on it.