Hi, what is better to get, stainless steel or ported headers and would they both need to be heat wrapped? That's for a UK turbo classic, thanks

 

There is no 'best' there is what suites the car/turbo/usage and driver preferance......

If yours is a later UK turbo, TD04 street driving and you want to retain flexibility then ported stock headers are what you want - including heat wrapping of manifolds, X and up-pipes....

Simon

 

As Simon has said, it all depends what you're after...

For the record we have just achieved 354bhp and 310lbs/ft in our MY00 UK Classic on completely standard headers, spool up of the VF28 starts at 3000rpm and hits peak 1.5bar at 4000rpm.

My point being you don't have to change them in any way to get good results, may be worth investing elsewhere...?

 

interesting, okay, I have a MY1997 uk turbo, which is currently mapped to 265/270 on standard turbo, headers and injectors (TD04, 380s) I have waiting to go on a VF23 and 440s, would it be worth putting ported headers on aswell, or do they really not make much difference apart from faster spool up?

 

heres one, sorry firstly for hi-jacking.
where could i get my headers ported ect?
i have sti v2 header on my uk classic

i like in notts

 

Nobody's saying you can't get good results with totally standard headers, many have. The point is that they work better when ported sensibly. Have you tried a ported set on yours? If you did and it didn't make any more power (or spool better) then you have a point. Speaking of which, why does yours spool and peak so late?

Could DIY if you have the inclination and kit. Or, Harvey.

Is there anything you dislike about it?

 

anyone have a number for Harvey?

So, it may be worth getting ported headers as well?

 

Is there anything you dislike about it? [/quote]

no, not really.
im putting a set of sti heads on. and just want a better flow
i've put an uprated uppipe on sti v2 standard headers

i did have a set of stainless headers, but they cracked. so dont really trust stainless ones

and from what i've read, some have hadthis issue

 

Sabas,
It has been proven beyond doubt that standard cast headers can be improved with appropriate porting. Anyone that says standard headers are fine and do not benefit from this process, is talking horse ****!

Speak to either APi or Harvey Smith about having this done!

 

Hi,

Recently ported my standard headers (MY 99 UK) myself along with a friend. First time I'd done anything like this and I'm sure I could have done more. Still, after refitting the results were surprisingly apparrent with improved turbo spool.

I feel the car needs some tweaks to the map to get the best out of this, as well as remain safe, however I am truly suprised at how effective this was.

It was a simple process, I had the headers removed for me by a nearby garage & we took our Dremels along with decent Tungsten Carbide bits & opened up the joins. Where to actually remove material was very apparent due to the black soot marks where the joins were off centre / different sizes.

Took about an hour and a half in total and given more time (limited by Garage closing time to get refitted) I feel we could have removed more material for even better results.

Might be worth just having a go like we did, found it surprisingly fun.

Cheers,

G.

 

And even better, you left all the iron filings and sooty sh*t at the garage, thereby saving yourself the effort of cleaning it up. I like this idea a lot.

 

That spool sounds slow.

 

Heh, actually my friend is just around the corner so it was his garage floor that got a bit messed up...expect we've scr3wed his vacuum too making sure the pipes were clear...

Still, for a first effort I'm pretty pleased with the results....faster spool and minimal knock activity reported via the Apexi handset, which was a concern...still going tweak the map soon though after I've done some proper logging.

Cheers,

G.

 

Is it a bigger bore up-pipe than std?!

If so, this is a backward step as it will increase spool-up times, as the gases passing through it to the turbo will have slowed down. They're only required for big bhp, when lots of air needs to be shifted in and out of the engine.

If you get the OEM up-pipe ported, along with the headers (or get the two items from harvey), then after the remap, you should see a notable improvement in reduced spool up times...

 

throught this my self.
so got another standard uppipe
when i fit my heads, the uppipe is going on.

 

The purists will no doubt be along shortly to cast scorn over the DIYers efforts, that extensive studies and better flow knowledge will give greater results, and they will be right.
But, you can still acheive very good gains DIY, just possibly not to the Nth degree that the experts can.