Performance Headers. Is It Worth It? | Saturn SL2 | STANCE BROTHERS @sdracingllc1594

We're going to install this new stainless steel header designed for competitive racing to see if we can increase our 0-60 power and our cool factor with more shine under the hood. What's happening? Everyone, welcome back to the

brothers

'

headers

, where you all started. interesting things Southern California does in the late 1950s, guys like Sandy Blunt Bob Hedman and Doug Thorley had become famous for their head designs and manufacturing heads were first used in competitive racing, then In race cars and hot rods,

headers

eventually became mass production. accessory for everyday enthusiasts like him now the exhaust manifold here is the first step in your engine's exhaust system the headers are intended to replace the headers are much less restrictive and unlike the manifold the headers have these pipes of equal length that create balanced cylinder output and reduce excess back pressure basically making your engine breathe better.

Heads provide three main benefits. The first, obviously, is better exhaust flow, but the last two are what we'll be looking for: more horsepower and more torque. Where is? We're having trouble removing some of these nuts here, so we're going to take a minute and remove the entire AC compressor from there so we can get to the last nut that's still holding the header on the manifold. I'll never see that again, okay, so if you can see here, I don't know if you can see it's a carbon buildup and look at this EGR pipe, that's why we don't like EGR, that's what we think. from EGS, that's good, so we removed the AC compressor and moved it out of the way where the disc was, attached this bracket here and took off the last manifold nut that we're about to take off and now this is coming off for the first time. time here, uh, and the whole time we've owned the vehicle, oh my gosh, look at all that carbon buildup, no wonder this thing is burning so good, oh, we don't need this, look at this gasket, man Oh boy, all these pieces are all clogged up, we're going to have to clean it up for sure, we just cut the old piece off the exhaust system that goes from the old manifold to the rest of the system so now we can put this new piece on just slide it over the old pipe and screw it onto the shiny new headers.

We are going to remove the EGR system. This set of headers came with the ability to plug it in, but since that robs horsepower, torque and fuel economy, we will be removing it and the good news is that this gasket that comes with the kit will be able to remove that Force. We're just going to put it here and there and it's going to cover all those ports so now we don't have to do that. worry about the horsepower coming out of this Val right here, well look here, look at this header pipe coming down here and then this strut over there.

I'm not physically able to put this on, not so just before you put on any of the other nuts by pulling on this side, slide them in and you'll be able to tighten them because it's okay there, you see, yeah, put them all on like, oh, he goes too to trim like this or it won't fit when you try. to figure out how to put the end here over that pipe, um, and put this other end here, there we go, the exhaust system hangs naturally here, like this, but the header is not aligned here, I have to push the whole system back. to line it up, so we need to cut a little bit here to make it fit right, it still pushes it back a little bit, but it's a lot better than this joint, the bottom is perfect, I got it good.

It was the next day that I installed the middle pipe down there, uh, this goes from the base of the header to right in front of the catalytic converter, everything is tight, the only thing is down here, under the car, we have to weld this point up The old pipe, uh, if you can see down here, there's a little bit of clearance that we need to make, right there under the oil pan, it should be taken care of easily. Isaiah will take this to his and our workshop. We're just going to trim everything that needs to be trimmed, we're going to clear everything that needs to be cleared and then we'll weld it up and see how it goes from there, I think after that we'll take it to the dye, so that's very exciting, we have We have to put the A/C compressor and the bracket back on, we have to put the serpentine belt on and then the carbon canister and try to reconnect something, some part of the AGR system, okay, I just want to let you know real quick whenever you want. you're threading bolts into aluminum, start doing them by hand first, it's okay, you never want to shock them, just run straight, you'll remove the threads easily, that's okay, just remember that, don't forget, it's important that all of this works. it reads clean air I hope I have a picture on my phone that shows me where the headers went sound check wait it's spitting oil where it comes out like a liquid uh oh this thing here is definitely not as loud as I thought it would be What it is What's going on right now is that this is the old AGR system, okay, so it's supposed to take the exhaust puffs from here and blow them over there.

This is a little vacuum line that's also inhaling and sucking and all that, and trying to put it back in. here, since there's not the right amount of puff here and the right amount of suction here, it's pushing it out, so we're just going to make a lock plate and we're going to create this little lock plate that we're going to slide it onto. here covering that hole and then sealing it with this gasket on top so the flow just comes out of the engine and goes through the EGR valve and into the carbon canister. Okay, check the exhaust sound, take two, it sounds so good, I'm so excited.

I always wanted to put headers on this car doing our first test drive, here we go, creak, buddy, did you hear I did it? It has this as IO little. I love it, top notch, just like me. For a little 100 horsepower car that does 103 on a good day and 102 on a rainy day a rainy day yeah that's not much of a difference hopefully especially once we get the full exhaust hopefully we'll see gains of five horsepower and that to me is

worth

it at the very least. things that help make your driving experience and a daily driver a lot better right wow buddy everything is like gold from now on nice it's blowing too right there a little blue so we had 101 horsepower on the last pull, so with a headbutt, I'm just going to say that I don't have any research to back this up.

I'm going to say that our pull is going to say 105. Okay, honestly, I'm thinking the same thing, a long time ago, when dad was putting heads on his V8 engines. he said it gave him about three horsepower, you know, times 103, I'm going to say 106 107, so I'm going to say 105, you're going to say 106 107, yeah, 107, 107, 105, we'll see what happens. This morning we have 81 subscribers and almost 950 views on our last video, so it's a big milestone for us at the beginning of our YouTube journey, so yes, there are very exciting things happening and only six, five or six videos in six . videos mhm, alright, alright, we're going to take this to Isaiah, we're going to have him weld up that center tube and just close it up to our exhaust.

Okay, we're about to cut the exhaust pipe because there's a flange. that we cannot unscrew and then we are going to weld the new head to the old system. Well, did you understand? I liked that I saw it move when the nut was released because that means it should come apart easily, perfect, hey, hey, we got it. Okay, we need the key to remove that, oh why do you say I have a knife with one hand? Here we go, here we go, hello, yes, so here we go to uh SD running again to run the uh dino pulls to see the horsepower gains with our new header woo hello, is that you?, yes ma'am, thank you very much , have a good time, she was so sweet here, it's the biggest burrito in the world, like McDonald's, how it finally happened, we're back, we're here in backed up in the next For all these cool cars, there's the bank of Testing, you already have the ramp configured and this is all perfect for SD racing.

We installed the um just a header, but it's still a stock exhaust so now we have intake and header yeah. wrapping those headers is

worth

something or not to the extent that it's natural it's not that much it would be more if you had electrical wires or something nearby to make it turbo yes it would be beneficial honestly the header wrapping usually ends up This leads to deterioration of welds because the head wrap retains water, okay, so if the steel or whatever filler rod that was used was not applied correctly or properly, or we have two different types of stainless steel in there, or you know, they have different alloys of steel, so you have two different alloys. 304 tends not to have rust problems.

One of the cheaper heads and stuff are made in 409, not 304. That's okay, but the head wrap usually retains water and that's the thinnest part. exhaust is where the world is, so if anything it would be ceramic coating, ceramic coating, okay, if anything, except natural aspiration, you won't see any benefit other than sitting in traffic, sure, yeah, okay , like I said, turbo, yes, and It will give you a little bit cooler temperatures under the hood while you're driving, mhm, especially the way you have the hood back there, if it's pulling air, that's more beneficial. The only downside to throwing is how much heavier it is to even put on.

The air is fine so we have cooler intake headers and stock exhaust so we'll see how this goes. Barometric pressure, humidity and temperature. I think those are the three things that affect it the most, so in a previous video we tested our completely original Saturn SL2. and it was making 104 foot-pounds of torque and 103 flywheel horsepower and you can see the initial video up here, once we installed the cold air intake, we saw that those numbers actually reduced our torque. It dropped 2 foot-pounds to 102. and our wheel horsepower dropped to 101. If you're interested in watching the cold air intake installation video, you can watch it here in the right corner.

Here we have installed the header and you can see those numbers have increased. We see a 5-foot PBS increase in torque as well as a gain of four additional horsepower behind the wheel and now we're heading to a government-sanctioned closed Road Course in Argentina to see if those higher numbers improve our 0-to-1 times. 60. Now the standard 0 to 60 for a 2002 Saturn SL2 is 8.9 seconds which we are looking to beat. Today we have our racing box set up here to check our 0-60 times and we're going to use this to test how. much faster than these modifications allow us to go, we'll need both of us to get in the middle of the road, you know what I'm saying, so you should probably be in the truck and then once the light turns red we'll both get out towards the middle you ready yes, roll well stock 0 to 60 8.9 seconds hey, okay, the first run um 0 to 60 9.91 second run 0 to 60 9.44 Third run 0 to 60 992 926 984 run 6 8.93 oh run seven oh I didn't get a run seven best results out of seven runs 0 to 60 8.93 wow so we're still doing what we anticipate as stock now my tires are worn out so initial grip is low um , so it was like that whenever there was some bad traction and stuff, um, so I could see it was a little bit better compared to having new tires, but the same, 8.93, even a little bit higher, but yeah, Well, a lot for that, but I'm glad we can find out what. was doing it sounds really good super good absolutely excellent job everyone spin let's leave it to our team we have our man Tris here filming we have Isaiah driving the Big Ben filming man everyone everything went so well so well now a modification like a header is super cool and it looks great under the hood and it's kind of a flex but unless you have ways to use that new flow like a turbo or a really good tune you won't see any real power gain and I hope this video has shown you that , so if you are planning to send it, have a few more things prepared to help, otherwise it will be a big hit on your wallet.

I hope this video was helpful, you know, let us know. you know in the comments what uh what you would like uh you know and you can't talk