I received my headers on Friday and they look really good.
I used a flexible LED light like whitegs430 used to look them over in a dark room. I'm waiting for the stainless tube and bends I have on order, and once they arrive the headers will be installed and the new merge pipe fabricated.

 

i would like to point out that our cars pretty much have the same engines my good sir, just saying.

 

while yes they do, PPE ISNT ACTIVE IN THIS POST....so might be more helpful to PM Paul directly

 

For those of you who have already installed the PPE headers, have you noticed the additional power or is it to subtle? Also, with an otherwise stock exhaust is there much additional noise?

 

Just got my replacement set in. Got upgrade to black coating. Checked them out with a led again no holes! The welds look really good to! Very nice job and great customer sevrice! Cant wait to install them.

 

Well Ive had an exhaust leak for a couple of months now. It started off really small, but by now it got pretty bad & its been driving me crazy. So sat I decided that I would try to tighten up the header bolts & if that didnt work, Id go ahead & pullem & install new gaskets w/copper coat. Well let me tell you this, there was no leak @ the gaskets. This is what I found. Let me say this too. Im one of the last 5 S&S Tri Y guys that PPE got. So as to not freak any of you NEW PPE header guys out. Now supposedly the 2nd gen S&S headers were not suppose to crack, but mine did. Check it out. Maybe JBrady can tell me if mine cracked in the same places the others did.

Passengers side:











Driver's side:





Well I drilled a small hole on each end of the cracks on the passengers side to help stop the cracking in the future & my buddy welded it up for me. Now we couldnt get all the way in the middle between the 2 pipes so we went as far as we could then ran further down the length of the 2 tubes & boxed it in. It was really kinda hard to fix the driver's side cause it was the small weld that cracked all the way around. So I used a cut off wheel to grind down almost all the weld & rewelded it up. Im hoping but not sure it its gonna hold. It might just do the same thing.

 

Wow, That crack is almost all the way around the tube on the driver side header. This is surprising to hear that even the 2nd Gen S&S headers have cracked. I hope we don't have the same misfortune with PPE's set. How long have they been on your car? Did you change the engine mounts when you installed them?

 

****.....making me not even wanna install my headers,i know those are the S&S headers but i dont wanna deal with any of these issues

 

Let me start by stating that maybe this needs its own thread and if possible a mod can separate. Hate to have a problem from one manufacturer affect another as that would not be fair.

That said let me ask, did you do ANY welding to the pictured headers prior to install? It is my understanding that all 2nd gen headers from S&S did NOT have welding on the outside of the 3 bolt catalyst flange. Seeing how PPE bought S&S leftover auction parts, some finished, some parts needing to be assembled, it is POSSIBLE maybe fairly understandable IF there were some 1st gen parts OR even a welding prototype that S&S tested the welding locations on with 1st gen parts. If so it would be understandable for PPE to assemble and sell the set unknowing of any problem.

How many miles are on your set?

Did you install the brace to support the cats? I know that the headers are longer than stock SC400 manifolds so using the brace would have required modification.

Seems to be a lot of variables here and would like to know the answers myself as IF (big IF) these really are 2nd gens they would be the 1st set I have seen/heard of cracking.

The durability of the PPE parts so far has not been an issue. I wonder who has the most miles on there PPE headers?

 

The crack that is almost all the way around, is on the passenger side. They have been on my car since April of last year. So almost a year. Yes I changed the mounts with the Megan poly set when I did the 430 block swap. Which the headers were only on the car about an hour before I spun the #6 rod bearing. Which is when I did the block swap.

Installed with 175k on the car. Car now has 192k on it now. Yes we did cut the factory tranny/cat brace & made a new ends that fit the new cat placement, which was about .75" longer than stock. Not sure if these are really 2nd gens or not. I do know that PPE had to finish these & did do some extra welding on them before they had them jet coated.

 

From this info I am leaning towards PPE assembling 1st gen tubes to create your set
I do not blame PPE as they may not have had the full history of the headers and the generational upgrades.

There are quite a few 2nd gen S&S users out there and nobody has reported any cracking that I am aware of. Yours cracked just like the 1st gens. I guess you could measure the tube wall thickness. Regardless you are going to need a remedy. Not sure if PPE will give you any help. Maybe a discount on a set of their current design?

Another option MAY be to re-weld then take and split some tubing one size larger and fit AROUND the original cracked tubes and weld that up creating double walled tubing in the crack prone areas.

 

IMHO, the headers above look like the 1st batch of S&S headers. I remember the welding on my 2nd batch S&S went about 1-2" higher up the 1st and 2nd tubes/pipes; as this was one of the problematic areas of the 1st batch...which was corrected in the 2nd batch.

 

Thanks guys for the info. Yea you know Im not mad or upset at all. If what they got was 1st gen stuff then thats what they got. I was still gonna buy them. They probably didnt know anything about the problems or what they had. That being said, Ive fixed them for now. I need to go ahead & contact Paul & just inform him what ive got going on, & see what kind of help he is willing to give me IF the problem persists. Im the kind of guy that if something breaks, then I just fix it. The only thing is I just dont want to be pulling these things out every 3-4mo & keep patching them.

 

Timely thread....

I was also one of the guys to get a last set of 2nd Gen S&S headers from PPE. Just started to hear the clicking sound on the passenger side as I now have a crack again. I really believe I have set of the 2nd batch headers as I remember the weld bead going much higher along the tube sides than the ones you have pictured. I've had these on for at least a year now and have been through at least 3 sets of S&S. In my experience, re-welding does not work.

I wonder if my particular set up is causing cracking because supposedly the
2nd gen S&S do not crack? Kind of a random question, but could my super low gears be contributing to the cracking problem due to significant engine torque or movement in the exhaust manifolds? I will say that from day 1 after install, on wide open throttle from a dead stop, I hear like mini-explosions or detonation pops in this set of 2nd gen S&S headers. This noise never happened with the 1st gen S&S. I guess I have a severe lead foot.

Can you guys give me an update on the new PPE headers. I have been out of the loop. Any cracking yet? Any warranty against cracking from PPE? How is the performance? Maybe Paul will give me some kind of discount on a new set.

I would really like some new headers as this has been the best mod to date besides the PI TC. The clicking noise from the leak is also starting to drive me crazy and I know its going to get worse. Furthermore, I picked up an Apexi NEO and want to get a tune, so I have to take care of this header situation first.

Let me know your thoughts.....hopefully J Brady will chime in with his thoughts.

 

Well I have put many miles on the car after the install and I took the car to the muffler shop to get checked for leaks. They couldn't find any but I am still getting a pinging/ ticking coming from the drivers side. They told me that it could be the headers making the noise.... Acted like it was common for headers to do this. Has anybody had any pinging/ ticking coming from there headers? I'm starting to get worried. Thanks.