New to the forum...got a 97 Ram 1500 4x4. I have a MAC intake ordered, and a flowmaster exhaust. I am considering buying some headers but I am concerned with leakage. Headers are notorious for leaking and I want some that don't. Summit Racing (who I buy a lot of performance parts from) has a set for only $160. Has anyone used these? Is there a set out there that doesn't eventually leak?

 

I was looking at getting those from Summit, but I'm going to spring for the ceramic coating to ensure long life and lower engine bay temps. The big thing you have to look for is the thickness of the flange that bolts to the cyl head. You want to find a header that has a 3/8" thick flange. Anything thinner will warp easier. Also, get the good copper gaskets to match. My wheeling rig used to eat paper gaskets due to a warped flange, I switched to the copper and it sealed right up and never failed again.

 

My girlfriend bought me a set of the summit truck headers last year for christmas and they were a nightmare. I actually sent one set back to summit because I thought they were bad but the next set they sent me did the same thing. I used two gaskets, high temp rtv, 55 dollar copper gaskets and nothing would shut them up, I fooled with them for 2 months before I gave up. Summit was really nice to work with they refunded the money. One of the techs that I work with said I could cut the flanges and make them independent of one another but I thought that was a pain and you could never send them back. Save your money for good headers or something else, and by the way when they were on, they did nothing for torque or horsepower (seat of the pants dyno of course) just my two cents

 

hey I have a 97 ram sport... I have a pair of Borla Headers, and with 95K on the truck, they have yet to leak! I cant say enough about Borla... I also have the Cat back exhaust system by them... again stainless steel Borla products have given me nothing but the best... not so sure about the prices these days.. but I think they are pretty reasonable! hope it helped.....

 

I've heard hit and miss stories about the Summit headers. Some people like them, other have nothing but problems with them. I haven't heard about any problems with the Borla, Gibson, or Mopar Performance headers, but with the costs of any of those brands, do you really need to splurge on headers or spend the money on the truck elsewhere. From what I hear, the factory manifolds flow pretty well, and headers don't make much of an improvement over stock. I think the only real benefit you'll gain is less weight over the stock manifolds, but I don't think weight was one of your concerns when you bought a 5000 pound truck.

 

I have a set of the summit racing headers on my truck, and it is all about preperation, if you clean up the gasket surface (I used dremmel tool) to get rid of the paint and surface imperfections and torque the bolts down after a couple of heat up and cool down cycles should have no problems.

 

I've got a 95 ram with the summit brand headers and they actually have the flowtech logo stamped right on them. I blew out the ****ty paper gasket that came with them within a week. I then put on a thick copper one (40 bucks or so) and havent had a problem for the last 60k miles/4 years.

 

There's a set of those ceramic coated FlowTech's on ebay right now......go here