Some friends and myself installed pacesetters and I thought I would share some of the experience for anyone to learn from.

Wed night 6p - 9p: Removed STB (PITA w/o 15mm ratchet wrench), AIR, EGR and coil packs. The bolt closest to the firewall on driver side coil pack is a PITA. It has a brace on it (associated with AIR system) that is impossible to get of because that has another bolt on the back of the block. What I did was pry the brace off of the bolt then bend it out of the way to get the last bolt off. You could then try to get that bolt on the back of the block and remove the brace, or just leave the brace like I did.

Thurs night 6p - Fri 5a: Thursday we came in with confidence because we made decent time Wed. Well we ran into a bunch of little bumps.

Started with removing plugs. Had problems with last one on pass. side until I took off the cat and got to it from the bottom. Same goes for that last pass. side manifold bolt. No problems taking off exhaust bolts, just use PB blaster.

One issue on Thurs. was my stock Y was spot welded to the Borla cat-back so we couldnt get it off. Instead we cut it off with a sawsaw but this cost us a lot of time. After we took out the oil stick tube the passenger side header slid right in.

Then we tried the drivers side. That dreaded tab sticking off the block seemed to be blocking it. I mentioned removing the steering linkage (saw it in writeups) but we decided to try and grind down that tab first. Wasted a bunch of time and it really didnt help. Removed the steering linkage (remove the cardboardish shroud under the headlight and get to the bottom steering bolt from under the car). After the steering linkage was out of the way drivers side header slid right in. Putting the steering linkage back on was somewhat tough (some grease wouldve helped).

We finally finished at 5am, got a few hours sleep and I drove it (open headers!!) to muffler shop in the morning to weld on the Y and connect it to the borla.

Make sure you have wratcheting wrenches (best thing since slided bread). Also we kept sticking extensions over a ratchet to get a bolt down in the engine bay with some leverage.

Results: With the lid and cat-back I ran 13.6 @103 on street tires. Add headers and drag radials and I ran 13.0 @ 107. It sounds great, with the exception of it vibrating on the K-member at just the right RPM. Going to try to fix that with some exhaust wrap. No floorboard banging because the exhaust shop put on the way and kept it off the floorboard.

Theres no way I couldve done this without friends and I owe them a lot for staying up till 5a to finish it.

 

Glad to hear install went well, those little problems can be frustrating, are you gonna get a tune? I am from Melbourne but live in Orlando now, there are a couple places over here. I did a tune, glad I did, my A/F was way off, probably been like this for some time, but once the tune was done, it pulled hard and put down 355/363 SAE ##'s.

 

Nice get up that sound clip

 

I have access to HP tuners, wasn't planning on messing with the tune too much though. Maybe shift points and some obvious things but I don't wan to mess something up. If someone has a good tune file with same mods etc. I would do that.

I'll work on a sound clip

 

Did you remove the oil filter? When we did Pacesetters on my friend's car, we were still having difficulty after grinding off the tab. Then we remembered to take off the oil filter and it slid right in, no messing with the steering linkage.

 

glad you like them!! im glad i had my buddy blkbird!! the pacesetters woke my car up big time.

 

j/w but is your borla closed or open? i have borla and i'm wondering what its going to sound like when i get headers.

 

Didnt remove oil filter. Didn't seem like that was blocking us. I had read on a bunch of writeups about the steering linkage so we tried that and it did the trick.

 

my borla is open (no plates). i actually think it is more quiet or at least equivalent at crusing speeds. it absolutely screams at WOT, sounds mean! there is some "rasp" at around 2100 rpm but i havent decided if it bothers me yet. if it does i may get a bullet in the I pipe (between Y and borla) to help.

 

how does it compare closed w/ lt's and ory vs open stock manifolds and y pipe?

 

nice write up, glad you didnt run into to many problems. ive done quite a few sets and always learn a new trick everytime i do it. everyone hates slp headers but i just did a set that was freakishly simple. had it done in four hours, with a friend that is good for handing me tools thats about it. but still glad he was there to help on the passenger side. i fabbed up a custom y out of a hooker off road y and flowmaster merge and the ground clearance is exactly the same as my QTP's. right under 6 inches.

 

I'm in the process of installing some pacesetter LT's on my 98 Z28, got the stock y-pipe and cats off then it got dark out so i called it a night, thank god for PB Blaster! anyways any tips on getting the last pass side manifold bolt out? looks like it would be kinda difficult.

 

thx for sharing the tips bro. i was going to tackle this once i get them in the back yard, but with all that, i will prolly take it to my bros work(dealer) and use their lifts and borrow some of my brothers co workers

 

just use a regular 10mm with a 2 inch extension on a 1/4 inch rachet with a bar over it for leverage. have to do it from the bottom.

 

do you mean closed plate borla & headers? if so, i dont know my borla is fully open

 

yeh i guess you could say there wasnt any showstopers, just learning experiences... like use an air wratchet for speed, and remove the steering linkage for drivers side

 

take off the cat and get it from the bottom ... its cake... i believe i put a 3/8 wratchet on it with 10 mm short socket (obviously) then used our leverage trick... get a long, or double up extensions put a socket on the end just big enough to fit over your wratchet handle (this will bring the lenght of your wratchet out of the engine area, down under the car and give you more leverage to get that bolt started... i think once it was broke i used a tiny ratchet with my hand all the way up there (small hands)

 

no problem .. you definitely need at least two people (i think)

 

Im considering a borla xr-1... haven't decided yet

 

That would be nice, I put the Pacesetters on this weekend and it was a BITCH, I was working by myself (I don't reccomend it) and my biggest problems were the tab on the block, (I spent an hour & a half with a little hack saw!) Also getting the cat high enough to get the right side header in. I still have some bolts to tighten up and I am looking forward to hearing it. Nice wright up, sounds almost EXACTLY like my weekend!