I installed a set of "ebay" stainless steel longtube headers on my friends 99 Trans Am today. The welds on the headers were nice but the o2 bung placement on the passenger side header was off. The oxygen sensor is actually facing downward on the passenger side at about a 15 degree angle. The header slid in from the bottom with out an issue. I had to cut the block tab off the drivers side of the block, grind the k member ALOT and remove the adapter above the oil filter to get the header in on that side. I removed 3 times as much material from his k-member on the drivers side as I did on my car when I installed my jet hot long tube headers, and the header is still touching on the k-member. I really couldn't grind it anymore without comprimsing the k-member. After we got the headers in place, I got all the bolts started except for the end bolts. I think the template that they drill the flanges with are slightly off. After moving them around some, and loosening the center bolts, and pulling and shifting them around for 20 minutes I finally got the bolts started. So, it may be a good idea if you are installing these to slightly enlarge the holes on the flanges. The collector on the passenger side had good clearance between the floor pan and the top of the collector, but the drivers side is tight.

The car only had an slp lid, bellow, and loudmouth on it before the swap, and now it has the ebay long tubes with an ORY. The car is loud as hell now, and I told him it would be but he likes it. He said it picked up a ton of power. The car has 125K miles on it, and he was getting a light for the passenger side cat (stopped up) so I guess he did notice a big gain.

I thought I would do a little write up since these headers are probably popular due to the price. I guess in all, I would give them a 9 out of 10 for appearance, but a 5 out of 10 for fitment.

 

You get what you pay for.. I saw the price when they were first posted up, and the thing I thought about was how they would fit.

 

with the header installed it is almost touching the kmember? also, every set of headers i've done, be them ebay, qtp, or pacesetter i've always had to just barely start all of the bolts and shift stuff around to get all of it to tight up straight.

 

it is touching the k-member slightly. The lip of the kmember in that area is completely gone and I started grinding in the bulk area of the k-member to gain clearance. I'm glad I did that. I guess his 125K mile stock motor mounts attributed to this but i think the fitment should be better. Yes, i had the bolts barely started in the center, but to get the front and back bolts in, my friend had to push, pull and twist hard on the header to so that I could get the bolts to start. I spent almost 2 hours on the bolts on his car, my car took 20 minutes. Every other car I've done, the headers weren't hard to bolt in. I guess since the disassembly was so easy on his car, it had to take a while to get the headers in place. We had the coil packs, plugs, egr setup, manifolds, cats, o2 sensors and y-pipe off in a hour and a half.