Prelude Kelly

header

I am proud to have spent most of the day trying to install an exhaust header on my car. I am not proud that at the end of the day, the old header is still occupying the engine bay. Rust 1, Stan 0.

To start at the beginning: I got a good deal on DC Sports Ceramic 4-2-1 header, so I thought that installing it would be "somewhat" easy. Anything, I thought, would be better than the stock one, pictured here with the heat shield removed:

So, after taking forever to jack up the car, I got underneath and stared into the face of the enemy:

These bolts are s-t-u-c-k. I was able to unplug the oxygen sensor and remove two support bolts (snapping one), but then things got interesting. I was trying to remove the bolts that hold the two pieces of the stock manifold together, which required a whole series of extensions on my wrench, with a metal pipe and my dad providing the necessary torque. Well, to make a long story short, we snapped a forged metal extension...

... twice. My dad, in his 50+ years on this planet, has never seen anything like that. I, in my 20+, haven't either. Around this time I decided that sometimes it takes a real man to accept defeat, and turn this over to a professional. We'll see what they can do after I get back from Montreal.

In the meantime, we can all admire the new header outside of the car:

posted by Stan D. @ Sunday, April 23, 2006