Getting Ready To Install Slp Headers Cat And Y Pipe On 02 Ss This Weekend. I Read In The Directions That You Have To Undo The Wire Loom That Runs Down The Fender And Pull Wire Slack From The Pcm For The Starter Solenoid,crank Sensor, And Oil Level Sensor. My Question Is How Hard Is This? It Also Says You Can Add 8 Inches Of Wire To Everything To Avoid This? But I Dont Want To Cut Any Factory Wires. Will 8 Inches Of Slack Come From The Pcm? I Plan To Put The Car On Stands As High As Possible And Undo The Trans Crossmember And Go From There. Any Suggestions And Tips Would Be Greatly Appreciated. Never Installed Headers Before Just Trying To Save $330 Dollars And Do It Myself!

 

The wires are no sweat. You only need to pull them out of the plastic wire loom and work your way back to the PCM. After you get all the slack you can out of them(it won't be much) run them back into the loom and keep them against the fender all the way to the motor mount. I hope this makes sense...on my install I was able to gather enough slack without removing them from the wire loom. Then I took the heat sheild that came with the headers and cut it in have. I put both pieces around the wire by the nearest header primary.

Now for the header part. SLP headers need to be as vertical as possible to install. Try to get the car high enough off the ground so you can stand the header up under the car. I think SLP's are the touqhest header to install. Don't be afraid to unbolt the tranny and maybe the motor mount on which ever side you are working on. Also, my experience has taught me that if it looks like it will be in the way just remove it...or you will spend twice as long trying to work around it.

Good Luck
Josh

 

Well I just did mine two weeks ago....

We elected to add to the wiring harness. I actually followed the fender to the battery and then dropped down following the main battery cable to the frame rail, back to the starter. We actually added 4' to the harness. The only problem with that, is there are not any plugs, so you have to do splices. We soldered all the splices and bought extra loom/wire/shrink wrap at Home Depot (of all places). As an extra precaution, we used the sheath from the installation kit to wrap the end of the harness(loom and all did not cut) closest to the starter.

We pulled the starter, which made it easier for the passenger side header to fit in. When we reinstalled the starter we rerouted the selinoid wire to the other side of the starter. There was enough wire to simply pull it to the oil pan side as we reinstalled the starter.

We used HEAVY duty jack stands on their highest setting for the front. The standard floor jack was nearly to the top. This gave us plenty of room. We used normal jack stands in the back.

We definitely had to unbolt the tranny mount, but the motor mounts are rubber and allow the motor to move a little as you move the back of the transmission. Had a buddy with a short 2x4 as a pry bar (cuts down on scratches) handle moving the tranny aside. We were able to get both headers in without a lot of trouble.

Though we started to, we DID NOT need to remove the coil packs from the valve covers. Between small extensions, and several socket drive combos (1/2 drive-10mm, 3/8 drive-10mm, etc), we were able to get to all of the bolts without disrupting the coil packs. The plugs/plug wires on the other hand, had to come out and were not especially cooperative.

Let's see...Murphyhaps(that !@#$!@$ should have been drown at birth):

1. Had a header bolt decide to migrate south during the process. Wound up chasing one down at the local f-body shop.

2. My I-pipe was a mess and we could not get it on the 'Y'. So I wound up having the local muffler shop use a pipe expander on the I-pipe and hook it up for me.

3. Since we left the starter wires on the starter(you'll see why), the harness kept pulling the crank shaft sensor wire off of it's plug as we were attempting to reinstall the starter. We wound up zip-tieing the little bastage on there.

4. Good luck getting a torque wrench(or any wrench for that matter) on the back bolts of the headers.

Other than the Murphy crap, the install went OK. If I had it to do over, I would do it again. I did mine over the holidays with two buddies. It wound up taking us 4 6hour days. We took our time, and worked together on each part. That included running parts wire, loom, header bolt, attempts to buy a pipe expander etc. We could have easily made better time.

Good luck and may Murphy leave you alone,

 

There have been some excellent suggestions given. I traced the wires back to the PCM and even with the slack taken out, I didn't have enough. As much as I didn't want to cut into the factory wires, I sucked it up and spliced in the extra wire. We loosened the tranny mount and pried the engine/tranny to the side and the headers popped right in.