SO TOM: I'm really not trying to beat a dead horse here BUT....
I maintain over 10 vehicles/equipment at any given time. My cousin swears to me he changes his oil in 20 MIN. Takes me 40 to 45 MIN I would guess. I think it's all about how different people look at things. Can I drop the plug, put on a filter & add 5 qt of oil in 20 MINs ?? YES but there is a little more to it than that ( at least for me ).


When I look at the pics you posted of the Banks, it seems not to be a direct replacement ?? Did you need to buy a Y pipe ??? Did you run the headers into a single exhaust or did you dual or have it dueled out ?? Did you do all the required exhaust work yourself as well ?? Did you get a shop to do it for free ?? In reading your post, I think you got all your studs out W/O a problem ?? COOL, any tips ?? I have (3) 2000 XXXs right now ( one is for SALE ) & not one of them has an exhaust leak I'm not going to touch them with a 10' poll unless I have to I Think anway

 

If you don't have a good reason to mess with them, then don't. I had 2 broken studs and just the beginning of an exhaust leak AND I wanted to try to improve it's performance some for our towing chores. I'm glad I did it when I did and like the Unicorn said, the performance increase may not be earth shattering but it is an improvement and I do use it pretty hard when towing so I'll take any boost I can get. Especially if that boost comes with a good fix to a developing issue (broken studs and leaks).

 

THANKS for the input...I didn't know it came complete and ready to tie into the stock EXhaust .. Do you think it would have made any diff to dual it ?? FOR SURE, I read a lot of ticking post & it makes me nervous BUT all is good for now on the EXhaust front. ONLY having to drill one stud sounds like you did good.

 

Yes, they are a very complete package and seem to be high quality parts. I was very lucky with only having to drill one stud out. As far as running dual exhaust, I would not do that. I have seen a couple of times where folks have gone to big duals and lost torque output and that would not be any fun. The stock exhaust tubing on these rigs is actually pretty well designed and my only additional plans are to eventually get an Aeroturbine 3030XL muffler for it.

 

Wish I could have done the exhaust studs myself. Last week I took the Ex to the shop because of the dreaded exhaust leak. Figured I had a couple of busted studs that would need to be removed some how. I thought of messaging Tom and Christina since they both went through the busted studs, install header project. I knew it was more than I wanted to take on (Not very patient, especially when busting my knuckles in a confined space). So I had a hard time spending the roughly $1000 for the headers and y pipe and who knows how much to get it installed. Plus I'm starting to get the Midwest rust in the rocker panels behind the passenger doors so the Ex is not going to be a forever car.

So ends up I had 2 broken studs and another hole that had previously been drilled out that was only loosely holding the stud in place. So they ended up installing a helicoil in the one opening and drilling out the other two studs. Machined the manifold so it would seal and charged me $600. Money well spent considering that I have visions of me crawled into the engine compartment drilling and screwing up the heads.

 

Well I looked for headers to replace my broken Manifold on the drivers side. There were a few for a reasonable price but all were for the 4.6 but then for my 5.4 they were jumping to around $600.00. In the end I just bought a new manifold and instead of studs I used M8 x 1.5" Stainless steel bolts. The manifold came with studs to reconnect the exhaust pipe plus I lucked out and was able to undo plus reconnect my egr tube without having to buy a new one

. My biggest problem was afterwards, I had taken off the inner fender to give myself lots of free area to work and when finished went for a test drive. It was great until I got caught in this unreal downpour, then in an instant lost all power but it came back but not like before. I thought maybe water had gotten sprayed on something it shouldn't have and to a point I was correct. I put it all back together thinking it would dry out then come back to normal but after a week of hot dry weather, I was still running at half power. THen it hit me, had something got sucked up into my air intake with the inner fender off. Well when I opened my air filter I got the answer to my issues, lol lol Attaching photo



Surprise for sure, my jaw damn near hit my fender seeing this!!

I guess water got thrown up to my intake during the tropical downpour I got caught in, soaking the filter and sucked it in. It took a few drives of coughing and spitting after before my computer got itself back to working properly again but running like it should again and a whole lot quieter now too.

 

I replaced the studs and gaskets on mine, including the studs to the "Y" pipe. It took me about a day per side, in my driveway. I did cheat and purchase a new EGR tube to save fighting to remove it from the manifold.