Installed these about a week ago and I am very happy with them. I notice a little more low end scoot when pulling away from stop lights. All I have installed other than the headers is the Injen short ram. I still have 100% stock exhaust. The install to say lightly was a complete nightmare. I am an experienced tech, working on a full shop lift and it still took me about 10 hrs. I wasn't speeding through it, making sure to get everything right but these are an extremely tight fit. And in the process of intially jacking up the engine I forgot to unplug the driver side AFR sensor connector from the main harness and it ripped all 4 wires out of the harness side. This took about 1.5 hours to repair as these wires are TINY and soldering them individually with almost no room was the biggest challenge. I ended up having to change the wire colors because I used plugs from another harness connector so I would have more room to work with. Luckily no check engine lights yet so it is holding up. You need a pretty good set of tools to get to all of the nuts/bolts and make sure you have someone helping you, it makes things a lot easier. Needless to say I hope I never have to change these out again! lol I made sure to use copper silicone on both the header-head flange and header-cat flange to lower the risk of leaks. I did have to cut off the steering shaft heat shield for clearance. That brings me to the ceramic coating. This is nothing short of amazing. The next day I put the car back on the lift to retighten all the bolts and the engine heads/block were scolding hot but I cannot believe this: I could grab the headers with my hand and they were not even hot at all. Lukewarm. Incredible coating. So you guys worried about ridding of the heat shield, worry not. This stuff is great.


I am hoping to see even more gains when I get my exhaust pieces all together and made up. I plan on running 2.5" piping all the way back from the cats back and converting into a true dual exhaust. Replacing the y-pipe/cat with a dual-in/dual-out MAC ProChamber. These are made specifically for Mustangs, but I installed one on my 06 Tacoma when I did a true dual exhaust on that (listen: ) and they sound great as you can hear. They are a hybrid h-pipe/x-pipe design, out-performing the traditional h-pipe setup and sounding way better than the x-pipe. From there It will go straight back to Aero Turbine AT2540i muffers. This thing is going to sound beast, and probably the only UZ engine with this setup in the world. I am at a snag though, I am trying to find a cheap used ProChamber (new ones with midpipe are $300+!) but they are hard to come by. Another thing I am trying to find is factory style flex pipes so I can easily unbolt the exahust in pieces and also allowing the exhaust to bend thus increasing the life of it. The ONLY company I have found that makes these is called FX Exhaust, but they only sell to distributors. And the ONLY distributor I have found is out of stock for at least a month. They have 1 left but I need 2. Here's the one for sale on eBay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/170815478168...S:1123&vxp=mtr Does anyone know if there's somewhere else I can find these?

 

sounds good man! i havent had time to play around with it yet.

 

Remember the video is of my V6 truck not the GS lol

 

WOW!! 10 hrs. for installation??
What was the hardest part of the install ?

 

10 is fast already the book says 13 to 15 hours

 

Hardest part of the install is probably loosening and tightening all the header-cylinder head nuts/bolts. Yeah the book has you removing the cylinder heads to get the manifolds off and alldata says about 7-8hrs per side going that route.

 

I've installed and removed headers on a gs430 a few times now. The most time consuming part to me was removing the heatshields. Everything else was fairly easy (with the correct joints and extensions) . Without heatshields there is no reason to even raise the engine.

 

the heatshields were the easiest part for me lol the instructions have you loosening the a/c compressor, but get the motor jacked up enough and they will slide out.

 

i think it took me about 12 hours or so to do mine. bout 2-3 on passenger side and rest on drivers but i also installed 4 O2 sensors and a few other things

the drivers side header....by far is the hardest part of the install. there just is little to no room in this engine bay to work here

 

Thanks for your update. Interesting and good to hear all the tips and tricks.

How was the condition of the motor mounts?

 

The motor and trans mounts were replaced about 20K miles ago but I felt that the engine still moved excessively. So I planned on replacing them anyway with newly purchased OEM mounts when I installed the headers. Upon further inspection I found that Beverly Hills Lexus installed a 2JZ trans mount. So I ended up replacing all 3 mounts. Unfortunately, the engine still moves around under load just as easily. But they are new and I might as well use them. To anyone else planning on replacing motor mounts, I highly recommend getting the supposedly 'harder' Megan Racing mounts instead of OEM units. They are still rubber so they wont cause excessive vibration but according to MR they are harder and more durable than the OEM rubber.

 

megan doesnt make mounts for the V8 just the I6 models for lexus.....or they didnt

 

They do now: http://www.meganracing.com/product.a...=1407&catid=91
And they are cheaper than oem retail cost.

 

Exellent find ILL!
I will definitely get these for my spring install.

 

interesting.....i had just installed new mounts when i did my PPE headers but i wish i had seen them. i would have tried them

here is a cheap place to get them

http://www.partshawk.com/product/mgn-1182

sure you will Jake,you have had these headers for months now man..... lol