Wow, what a piece of cake.

First off, I want to say that the guys at QTP are a great bunch of people.

Second, the quality of the headers and Y-pipe are top-notch. Granted, the ORY-pipe was like putting a jig-saw puzzle together, but it fits great.

Alright, the install:

Total time: 6 hours (on a lift)

I had two friends helping, one of which did a header install before. We got all the old crap off in about 2 hours. The coil packs were the hardest, because that lost bolt or two in the back was a PITA. Also, one of the bolts on the flange for the passenger side cat was a bitch to get to. I tried at it for about 30 min, before I wised up and grabbed some penetrant. After that it wasn't too bad. I just had to go to a 16mm socket instead of the 15 I used for everything else.

Once I got the manifolds dropped, I wanted to test the driver-side header. I did my research and found that I'd probably have to drop my oil diverter, possible drain plug, and might even have to jack up the engine a couple of inches. I also read that the best way to get the header in was to make it so the collecter is actually verticle, in other words, have the header aimed straight up. Sure enough, I tried it without taking ANYTHING off, and it went right up in like 5 seconds. My friend that has done headers before said I was the luckiest SOB he's ever known. Obviously that saved us a lot of time. Also, the passenger side went in just as easily. Didn't have to remove anything.

It took a while to get the driverside header sealed right though. All the bolts would go in fine, but the very front one didn't want to go in all the way. I loosened everything up and tightened that one first, and that seemed to have done the trick.

I also put in new spark plugs, because it was about that time anyway. The first few were tricky because of the angle of the plugs, but after I got the hang of it, the rest were cake. My spark plug socket kept getting stuck on the plugs though, so that was a pain.

After that, I connected everything back up, and fired up the car. DAMN was it loud (open headers at this point) There was the usual smoke from the oils on the headers and the inside getting baked. Went for a quick spin, and everything worked fine, so I went back on the lift and started on the Y-pipe.

The Y-pipe was really confusing because there were actually two parts that were accidentally stuck on each other (a short elbow, and a 4" to 3" merge pipe) After we figured out that those were two seperate pieces, it wasn't too bad. We were actually short one band clamp (for the Y-pipe/I-pipe connection) Other than that, it tucked up pretty well in most places. It's still the lowest point of my car in one place, but it's not too bad. Thankfully my car's not lowered, otherwise we'd have problems. Also, the Y pipe is hitting the floor board right now in one spot, so I'm getting a valvespring welded between it.

Other than that, everything is going great right now. I definately noticed a difference. The sound's great, absolutely amazing. I have the stock catback with a Dynomax muffler, and it has a very nice sound to it. Not raspy at all.

So yeah, all in all it was a great mod. I'm just glad I had friends to help, because I think I only did about 40% of the work, haha.

 

I plan on getting QTP's so this is good to hear!! How do you like that TCI 3800?? Any track times with it?? Thanks

 

Sounds good that the install was easy. I'm waiting for my QTP HVM LT's- should be coming soon.

 

Good to hear it went in easy, I'll be puttin mine on real soon!

 

I love the TCI. Great converter. Only thing, is that it was rebuilt by a local 'verter guy because it was in pretty rough shape from TCI. I guess they don't use the greatest materials. As far as track times, I haven't had my car to the track since it's been in. The guy that had it before me dropped .5 and was pulling 1.5s with it.

The HVM's look great, too. I saw a car at the shop last night that has them, and they're purrrrrrrdy.