header options?

[turbodan]

[disco stu]

as this discussion gos on i want to defend myself and say nothing in the first post was intended to be fact and that i was asking for input.

[turbodan]

Its good that you asked instead of just pulling your exhaust and ravaging your car with a crowbar.

The only idiots in this are those that actually believe thats a good idea.

[bmanice]

honestly, if i lost 5hp when i installed headers i wouldnt care, you wouldnt even notice...


bottom line is....


headers look cleaner
headers will give you potential for more HP in the future (h/c/i or what have you)
headers look better
headers sound nice


... i know this is mainly personal preference, but its kind of obvious


if your looking for power gains, dont waste your time at all... go turbo... in my case, im broke and i just want a clean looking motor bay...

i think im going with the westcostcustomparts units... they look really clean... the stahl headers list for $1010, and ive heard that the bavauto headers had crappy welds? any foresight? ive also never seen the Ireland Engineering pieces... pics anyone?

[turbodan]

Youre broke, so you choose to *waste* money on headers? See, I just dont understand that.

They sound the same
You really might lose power
Who cares if they look better/cleaner

Stock manifolds fit the stock exhaust, which is nice. Headers require cutting/fabricating to fit and they'll probably never fit as well as the stock system does.

If you're required to run naturally aspirated by class rules, you could justify an NA build with headers. With a big cam and porting they would be worth doing. Apparently ported stock manifolds do pretty well too...

[C.R. Krieger]

[bmanice]

you guys are really rediculous. why do you need to be to so on edge ALL the time. if you want to install headers do it, if you dont, than dont.


turbo obviously is the best way to make power, everyone knows this... thank you turbodan... its also not too easy to do...


and why cant someone just want to make their motor bay look clean? why do i have to keep my hood shut...

any why do you keep running your mouth C.R. Krieger??? your negativity gets old fast man...

[turbodan]

No but really, if you're broke, why would you spend so much money on something that does less than nothing? It doesn't make sense. Your statement read as if you believed headers were some kind of low cost alternative to turbocharging, which is definitely not the case.

[wkohler]

The only thing I'm going to add here is that the ones you saw on westcoastcustomparts are the same as the IE ones. Also, the BavAuto headers are Stahl headers.

Honestly, if I had $400-$1000 to spend on something, I wouldn't start with headers. I'd put the money (if you had to spend it on your car) towards making sure your suspension and brakes are in good shape. As far as I'm concerned, the motor is the last place to spend money (not everyone agrees, but I'm not everyone). I'd pay the $520 for the Miller MAF before buying headers. There's a performance piece you'll really notice (I have never put my car on a dyno before or after, but the as close as makes no difference instantaneous throttle response is good enough for me) both in the seat and under the bonnet. I don't know about you, but I can't even see my exhaust manifolds. The stock airbox hides the front and with the cant of the motor and the heat shields, I'd have to work too hard to see them.

If you want to go spend the money on headers, do it, but it wouldn't be something I'd do before anything else if I was on a tight budget.

[EuroShark]

[turbodan]

Every "ingredient" should be in there for a reason. I see no reason to buy a component just to have it.

[bmanice]

[Jeremy]

Krieger's not negative, he's just obsessively compulsed to point of stupidity. Which is exactly what buying headers and replacing a perfectly functional exhaust would be for someone who's as broke as you claim to be. He's trying to prevent you from doing something that'd be absolutely foolish.

If you've got $1000 burning a hole in your pocket and feel compelled to spend it on the car, we can point you in some much more cost effective directions.

Jeremy

PS - headers don't "clean up" anything in an e28 engine bay since the slant 6 is tilted with the exhaust side towards the ground. The exhaust is mostly hidden from view. You could make it more appealing by simply removing the stock manifolds and either painting them with high temp paint which might not hold up or get them ported and powder coated.

[Jeremy]

[C.R. Krieger]

[Elliott]

[turbodan]

My turbo car has run great except for when I've done stupid/careless things to it. Megasquirt does exactly what I tell it to do.

I could do it all again for under 3k. That would get me exactly to where I am now. 1.4 bar springs in the wastegate, daily driven, and now over 20 mpg thanks to the stock compression ratio. 4-6k is *a little* on the high side, especially for a basic turbo system.

If you want to buy something cool for your car, standalone is the way to go. Chicks dig guys with laptops in thier cars. I'm not even kidding.

[Brad D.]

[C.R. Krieger]

[turbodan]

Already got one with your Mom.


Ohhhh

Ohhhhh

[Brad D.]

Haha, this thread makes me laugh.

[kevink00]

To possibly add something substantive to this conversation, I took part in a dyno day many years back with several e28s. The Jim Conforti chipped stock exhaust e 28 535s that were running well put down about 150-155rwhp. My car (88 535i 5/87 build) and another had almost identical mods, with JimC chips and he had a Stahl and I had (still have) a Bavauto header. We both had hp numbers in the low/ mid170s, with torque figures approaching 200. There was only 2-3hp diff between our two cars, and about 20+ separating the non-headered cars. That number is also corraborated by the butt dyno, which says about the same. Those cast iron manifolds are corks-- 20hp and 20-25ft-lbs is a nice change, and worth the dough, I think. (the Bavauto guy tried to talk me out of them, saying they were a ho-hum mod, by the way). I think those who do not approve of the purchase are theorists, and have no real-world or empirical experience. I bought my headers on sale, and would not hesitate to recommend them. It's really elitist to say the Detroit guys need them and the BMW guys dont. Folks--these cars are 20+ years old, with engineering MUCH older than that! Let's not get delusions about our iron being so much better.

Have a nice day.

I will put on my Nomex now.


Kevin

[Brad D.]

^^
Without dyno sheets, its just hard believe that a stock m30 with a chip and headers would make 20+hp and 25+ft-lb. I have yet to ever see anyone post a dyno sheet that would prove that either. That (and more) would be doable with a cam, and portwork but I seriously doubt headers are going to get you there.

[Q-ship]

[kevink00]

Here's the writeupup that was posted by one of the participants that day.

http://www.mail-archive.com/bmwuucdigest@uucdigest.com/msg00993.html


Look about 75% down on the page. In this, he talks about my car as having a problem-it did-the bell housing reference sensor was bad, which produced this weird spiky sine wave dyno pattern. I went back later after fixing the problem and got almost the same result as Eric Rayl (within 2-3hp). I have the dyno sheet somewhere, but it was never scanned or saved to a computer, so it does not fall immediately to hand. In the later dyno day, which never got written up on the internet, there were at least 2 other e28s, and they put down lower numbers to the walt suman car, becuase I remember thinking at the time that his car was a really good runner--no stock e28 really matched to those figures. Again, it was 8 years ago, so for those who need proof, I will try to find my last dyno sheet, but that was 3 moves ago...
At least you have some 3rd party date to dismiss, approve or ignore!