After reading krewat's thread on his eBay headers and finding them some months back, I decided I wanted to purchase a set and figured I'd get to it eventually. For reference, my truck is a 2000 Excursion 4x4.

After having these headers sitting around my garage for the better part of 6 months, I decided it was finally time to get around to doing this upgrade. I found that one exhaust stud had broken already, and I figured that the best time to do this was now. I'm trying to get all the work done on the truck during the time period where I don't have to drive the truck. Once winter comes, the truck breaking is not a good option. Here's my timeline so far.

Monday I had off. So, this was the time to get started. Two of the nuts on the factory studs stripped right off, and couldn't be gotten at with vice grips. The rest I was able to get off. Most of the studs, upon attempting to remove them, snapped out of the head. Three snapped inside the head. However, I got the stock manifolds off and got all the studs out except for the three inside the head.

During the week I got in there to resurface the head, but that was about it. I generally was busy after work, so only one evening I actually got a few minutes to do that. One thing I did discover, though, was that the bolts they sent were the wrong kind. Yep, 5/16 instead of the M8x1.25. Well, those bolts are too short anyways. So a quick trip to Lowes with a factory stud that came out complete with nut and I decided to get a bunch of M8x1.25-40 bolts and lock washers.

The other thing I did was make my notch in the frame on the passenger side. I will try to get some pictures later to show exactly what I had to do. The cutting wheel helped here, but it sure took a while, even with a 26 gallon tank for my compressor. That frame is thick, heavy steel. I tried to make the notch as small as possible while still being acceptable. It's a bit bigger than it needs to be, I think, but I believe I did well enough.

Today I've made some more progress, but working outside in the rain has hindered me (I'm too patient to get completely soaked working on this). I made some more progress. The passenger side was complete, so I managed to get the header on that side installed and all the bolts in and initially torqued. I made a bit of progress attempting to drill out the head studs (which happen to be on the driver's side... annoyingly), and then got too wet to care anymore and decided I was going back inside. So, here are my notes thus far. Most of you are probably better mechanics than I am, so if my notes seem dumb to you, that's probably why.

- This job is not actually so bad so much as it is time consuming, so long as you have the right tools. For me, having an oxy-acetylene torch was very beneficial. It managed to melt off the two nuts that got stripped, I really do not believe I could have gotten them off another way without significant cursing. Additionally, make sure that you have a good assortment of short and log sockets plus extensions (and flex extensions), and some shorty wrenches. Having the different combinations is what allowed me to get at all of the different nuts to get them off without significant cursing. Some people I've read have had to disconnect the motor mounts and things like that to get at certain bolts. I didn't, at least I haven't yet.

- I have not not had to remove the Y-pipe, and hopefully I won't. To get the passenger side header in I removed the shock tower (which is very simple) and also undid the little bracket that holds the brake line and vacuum line for the front hubs. This gave me enough clearance to just slide the header in. Talk about an easy way to install! Unfortunately, that doesn't look like it will work on the driver's side due to the steering column. But I have another idea for that, stay tuned for success/failure...

- On the passenger side, at least, the #4 cylinder (from the front) top bolt is the only one that looked problematic. So, after getting all 10 bolts in hand tight, I got my shorty wrench and tightened that particular bolt first. I've had no problems getting at the rest to tighten. I didn't have any problems with the gasket, either. After placing the header in place loosely, I slid the gasket behind it and maneuvered the assembly as necessary to get the #1 cylinder top bolt in loosely, and then the #5 cylinder. I've also used anti-seize on all bolts going back together.

I don't think I'm going to have to remove the Y-pipe, unless I have to bend it. I'm hoping I dont, those bolts holding it to the cat are looking pretty awful, but nothing the torch can't handle.

Assuming tomorrow's weather is prettier (hope so), I suspect I will get this job done. Right now I have about 10 hours in it, and that probably includes 1-2 hours of me looking at the thing and pondering what the best way to go about the job is.

Tomorrow hopefully I'll get the job finished up, although I won't be able to drive the truck, just start it. In the course of my summer repairs I changed out the ABS module, and I'm waiting for my friend's power bleeder so I can bleed the thing before I drive it. Once again, not in a hurry, so I may take the opportunity to try to diagnose the check engine light a bit further.

An additional question with this: Is there a good, affordable exhaust upgrade that covers Y-pipe to tip, or some combination that would cover it? I figure that if I want to do something like that, now's the time, but I don't want to spend a lot of money on it since the factory exhaust works just fine. My goal would be a performance improvement and something that makes the engine show off its sound. The stock exhaust note is uninspiring to me. I also don't know what the truck will sound like with the headers yet.

While I can't give a complete summary, I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I would say that I have done much, much worse jobs. Not that this is necessarily an easy job, but I think that more than anything it's time consuming. I expect to have around 15-18 hours total time in my installation, a lot of you could probably do it quicker. I could do it quicker if I was still a mechanic working on cars daily. I would far rather do this than, say, change the motor mounts in the K2500 Suburban I used to own (which I did and I never want to do that job again).

Hope this provides some information for people who are contemplating this upgrade.

 

Good job so far

Subscribed ...

 

Well, I couldn't find my camera so I couldn't take any pictures now, but expect some more later this week. I'm waiting for my power bleeder to arrive so I can bleed the brake system (changed out the ABS module, some of you may recall that my ABS light has been giving me grief for the past 6 months or so... finally decided to do something about it) I will have the wheels off again and I can take some pictures then.

But the summary: It's back together, and NO EXHAUST LEAKS! (at least, none that I can tell from idling it and revving it a bit)

I got a bit more gumption yesterday afternoon when the rain subsided and went back outside to finish drilling out the studs. Having a 90 degree drill would have helped significantly, but I managed to do it using my standard drill and a combination of drill bits. I will stress that if you want to do this, the important thing is patience. I believe that Ford left plenty of meat around the exhaust studs. This would make sense for tolerances in the sand casting and where the drills will make the holes. That said, drilling into a coolant passage would really ruin your day.

Patience prevailed. I managed to drill out the three studs. Of course, I had completely screwed up the threads at this point. I decided that the best course of action at this point was to just drill out and tap the holes for one size bigger, so I drilled and tapped them for M10x1.5. A couple of measurements later I figured out what size bolts I needed.

That was it for yesterday, other than a quick trip on the motorcycle to Lowes to buy the bolts I needed.

This morning I woke up to a crisp, cool morning, full of gumption to get this job done.

Tightening up the passenger side fully was easy. I put the brake line braket back on, as well as the shock tower back in place.

The driver's side, as we know, is more of a pain. Here's what I did:

The eBay headers have a 1-piece flange, rather than the factory Ford headers that have 5 individual flanges. The dipstick tube goes between the #3 and #4 cylinders. I unscrewed it from the block and allowed it to be loose. Then I disconnected the steering column from the steering box and took advantage of its collapsable nature. It goes up into itself about 2 feet. Don't worry about the wheel not going back on straight, it only goes on one way. Good on Ford for this. Just make sure not to spin the steering wheel and break the clock spring, that would give you a not-so-nice "SRS" light.

Anyway, once you've done this (and moved the air filter out of the way) you can just slip the header down from the top and lay it in its new home. I found this to work well for me.

From there, it'd say the install was nice and straightforward, just time consuming. I got the bolts in, getting all the normal ones threaded a few turns but still leaving the header loose. Then I got the bigger bolts in. Thankfully, the header has holes drilled large enough oversized that my slight off-center worked out just fine. I then tightened all the bolts. Be logical when you do this - get all the bolts in, then tighten them loosely, then tighten them tight.

I found that each of the bottom bolts had its own "trick" to get at. The #2 and #3 on the driver's side are the most annoying to get at, but I managed. But I also have relatively small hands with long fingers, so that makes it pretty easy for me to get into places that are difficult for a lot of people. I used my shorty wrenches a lot here.

I don't use torque wrenches on exhaust manifolds, rather I tighten them to "Ted spec." So, using standard wrenches worked fine for me. I have generally found that I don't need to use torque wrenches on exhaust systems and haven't had leak issues.

After I got the headers bolted up, I bolted the Y-pipe on. I didn't find that it needed any tweaking, it was close enough that I was able to just put the bolts through and bolt it up. Of course, I remembered to put the O2 sensors back in.

Moment of truth... start the engine. And... no leaks! At least, it sure doesn't seem that way. I listened around and, other than hearing a bit more exhaust noise (which I attribute to the headers) it seems quiet. I revved it a bit, but it definitely sounds like it's fine.

I can't drive the truck yet since the brake system is waiting to be bled, but the next report will be after that.

My question now to those of you who've done this before: How often, and how many times did you have to retorque the headers before you found they settled properly? My plan was to leave the fender wells off until everything was finished settling and properly torqued.

Pictures to come...

 

I re-torqued everything just about every time I took it for a drive. I was very **** about it, having had problems with my 390FE headers in the past.

The gasket that came with the headers seems to compress a bit before it stops compressing. Eventually, within a month or so, I found I no longer needed to re-torque the bolts to keep them tight. It's been over a year, and I recently went over them again and they were perfectly tight.

I too used my own "art's torque" on them - I would challenge anyone to get a torque wrench on most of those bolts without going absolutely insane. You'd need a crow's-foot to get to the bolts where the pipe passes over the head, and then there's almost no way to get a torque wrench in there AND get an accurate measurement.

Besides, I used RTV on the gaskets so any warping of the flange will be OK, plus the flange is so thick it's not warping from a 5ft/lbs difference anyway.

By the way, with a 13mm Craftsman combo wrench with the box-end at 0 degrees (a torque works wonders), and a 13mm/15mm box wrench (longish), and a 1/2" wrench (well worn) I was able to re-torque everything with the fender wells installed. Getting underneath helps, climbing on top of the tires helps, etc.

 

Thanks for the tip, Art. My intention was to drive it to work on alternating days until it seems to have settled. That way I don't have to work on hot exhaust. Once it seems to be consistently tight, that's when I figured I'd put the fender wells back on. My commute is about 30 miles round trip, so hopefully that'll be enough for it to settle quickly. I'm hoping for less than a month, but I also don't have any big trips with it planned for that time period, so I should be alright.

 

Well, I got the power bleeder in the mail from my friend and bled the brakes today. I then started up the truck and took it for a drive. First things I've noticed:

1) No more ABS light on! That means the new module I put in worked! Woohoo!
2) No more check engine light! That means... I have no idea what it means. I had the battery unplugged which reset the PCM. The code I was getting was coming back after 3 restarts... which I've had about 5 right now. Whatever, I'm not complaining.

Ok, what matters are the headers. However, the fact that I put those other items as first should tell you something. I was not expecting an earth shattering difference, but I was expecting a bit more than I got. The eBay headers seem to have done the following (in order of most significant to least):

1) Look cool
2) Increase my low-end grunt a bit (but a noticeable bit)
3) Make a slight change in sound (very slight)

From the reviews I'd read from other people who've done this modification, I was expecting a more significant change in sound and performance. I will tell you that, at least on my truck, the difference isn't as much as I'd hoped in either sound or performance. However, like I said, I do notice a low-end improvement. What I will be curious to see is whether or not this translates into any improvement in fuel economy. I'm waiting on that.

What I need to figure out now is whether or not I want to put a new muffler on to try to get some more sound out of it or leave well enough alone. I have to figure that one out, I am probably going to decide to leave well enough alone on this truck for the time being... unless I buy a big turbo and just bolt that after the Y-pipe. Maybe over the winter the exhaust will rust out on me and I'll need to do something about it, but for the time being I'll probably leave it be. After all, my other car is my real toy.

Would I do this again? Absolutely. The exhaust studs needed to be dealt with anyway, and now I've got some nice bolts in with anti-seize on them. Furthermore, they look cool and they do make an improvement. At $175, it's a bargain, especially when you figure you might have to replace your factory exhaust manifolds with new ones or else have the surface machined.

So now my old ones go on eBay!

 

For me, the ebay headers didn't do anything to the low-end grunt, but DID help out on the top end, above 3500RPMs, seemingly extending the torque curve out further.

Sound did not improve drastically, with the stock exhaust.

 

Well, I drove the thing to work today and that gave me a bit more perspective.

The sound is a bit more noticable when you get on it some. I am certainly noticing more in the way of low-end. I don't normally get above 2500 RPM on my commute to work, so I didn't get on it any.

I'm still satisfied with the change, and perhaps I'm noticing a bit more change than I did yesterday. My real qusetion will be whether or not I'll notice any change in fuel economy.

 

Great write ups and you made it sound like it was so easy, far from what I've gone through so far, but then again I have a shot back which didn't/doesn't help any. I wish like heck I'd have had better results in the stud removal dept (9 total, 6 broke and 3 studs), but my rig was used as a farm truck for the first few years of it's life and then used as a partial daily driver and pulling a 32' camper to FL couple of times a year.

What are you going to start out asking for for your old logs on ebay? I'm going to be doing the same here soon, just wondering. If I don't have any hits on em I'll post on craigslist.

Shame Ford won't take em back at cost

 

I glass-beaded mine, and checked that they were straight. Then listed them for $400 in my eBay store with a "best offer" option available.

Someone bought them outright for $400.

They looked brand-new, and had less than 25K miles on them. And again, I verified they were perfectly straight.

 

Oh, and they sat in my store for at least 6 months before they sold.

They did NOT sell in an auction.

 

You know, I will honestly say that I don't believe this was the most difficult job I've done. That said (and perhaps this should have been my preface), I also was a Jaguar mechanic for a while and I do have a pretty well-equipped shop in terms of having tools like a 25 (or is it 28? I forget) gallon air compressor with cutting tool and 90 degree rotary tool (actually I bought that one for this project) with resurfacing wheels, an oxy-acetylene torch, and a multitude of wrenches, sockets, and extensions in all different sizes and lengths. I used all of these in this installation. Had I not had them, I would have had to make compromises and the job would have become more difficult, if not impossible.

Personally, I don't feel I'm all that great of a mechanic anymore since I now work on my cars maybe a total of 20 days out of the year instead of virtually every day for 3 years straight, but I write it as I see it. The biggest PITA out of the entire job was drilling out those three studs. Oh, and I did use my cutting tool to cut one of the bolts/studs/whatever you want to call them out of each of the exhaust manifolds. I also used it for cutting my notch in the fender.

More than anything, this job is LONG (my guess is I have a total of 14-16 hours in it, including looking at stuff to figure out what I want to do, not including about 3 trips to Lowes), and requires patience. If you are patient so you think about the job long enough to attack your problem the right way rather than just going at it and drill a coolant passage, it really isn't too bad.

I still say the two worst jobs I have done (even though both of them took less time than this) were motor mounts on my '95 K2500 454 Suburban and a starter on an '89 Ford Probe 4-cyl. At least, I remember both of them as being worse. Maybe it just takes more to bother me now than it did then.

Too bad you aren't closer, or I'd come out and try to help you with your stud issue. I seriously doubt you truly need to remove the heads for it, rather just need the proper set of tools and a patient hand. I know on my V10 I can't see where any of the studs would have been so impossible to get at that no set of tools would allow me to do the drilling in-situ.

As to price - I know mine won't fetch what Art's did. Mine have 104k on them, you can see on the one where I took the torch to the nuts (although it did not damage the manifold itself in the process) and I have not, and won't bother, verifying straightness. I figured I'd start out at $50 and let people bid accordingly. If, for some reason, I get $200 for the set and that pays for my headers with shipping... I will laugh.

On, one other point. Somebody (on a different thread, I think) had mentioned that the brake line on the passenger side was too close to the headers for comfort. Last night after I got back home from my initial test drive (with the truck still running to listen for leaks), I went around to the passenger side and touched that brake line. It seems to have about 1/2-5/8" of clearance between it and the header, and I can't see it moving so that it would touch. I could touch the brake line and it was a bit warm, but I could keep my hand on it without issue. That tells me that it's not warm enough to cause any problems, especially while moving where there is enough air flowing over everything to keep it cool.

 

Oh, and now the only question is whether or not I want to turbo this thing next summer. I'm thinking I could grab a PSD 7.3 or a Cummins turbo and throw it on for 6 psi, tune it a bit and see some decent power boost and gain a bit of economy on the highway.

Alternately I could do some tiny twins, but that makes for more complicated plumbing and I don't think is really necessary.

 

Well, I've been driving the truck like this for a bit over a week. I've put probably 200 miles on it or so. What I've been doing is driving it to work every day and then retorquing the bolts a few hours after I get home (my commute is about 35 miles round trip).

As far as I can tell, these things are done. The first day or two they were noticably looser, but now it's gotten to the point where I'm not getting any extra turning. I think I'm going to wait for some afternoon next week to put the fender wells back in and get the thing fully buttoned up. In the mean time I won't retorque them, and that way I'll see if, after several days of driving, anything changes.

After driving the thing a bit longer, I seem to have gotten a slight fuel economy improvement. On my city cycle I'm now getting about 13.2, whereas before I was getting around 12.5-12.7 in the summer and 11.5 in the winter (I'll still consider this summer). I haven't yet taken it on any sort of highway trip, that will be the next test. That'll probably happen in the next few weekends.

The check engine light did come back (although it took more than three starting cycles). I'm fairly well certain it's the same code (haven't checked), so I probably ought to fix that. Unfortunately, I think it's the computer and I have no desire to replace that computer if I can avoid it. That's another issue, though.

In terms of fun things, I need to decide if I'm going to bother doing the headlight upgrade, and then if I want to do a turbo with about 6 psi boost come spring. The headlights on the truck are pretty awful, and I would like to experiment with some of these newer HID conversions that I'm thinking of using on my other car, so it seems like it might be worthwhile. The turbo would be fun as I'm also looking at doing some custom turbo setups, and this would probably be an easy place to experiment, plus I would bet to get a bit of a mileage improvement on the highway with the hotter intake air, certainly in winter.

As to the headers, I'd definitely say it's a worthwhile upgrade, but probably not for those who aren't prepared to have the truck down for a solid week (unless you've got a solid weekend to work on it) and don't have a good set of tools (which you will need).

 

And... hopefully final update on this. This past weekend I did what will be the final retorquing and then put it all back together. The bolts aren't taking any more torque, they remain tight, and it's been that way the past 100 miles of driving. So, it took me less time than Art, but I was driving the truck daily. I suppose it was about a week and a half of daily driving for the truck.

I put the fender wells back in and all, and now consider the project completed. Now driving with the headers for a bit, I do notice some additional noise from it, but it's not a bad noise per se, it just doesn't sound quite as muscular as I'd like. I may address this with a muffler, but I'll figure that out later. This year will get the headlights and then I'll be done with any modifications until spring, when I have to decide if I want to bother turbocharging the thing. If I do, I'll do the exhaust at the same time.