I have a 97 ram 1500 I bought headers and a new cat. My sisters boyfriend and i will be putting them on we are talking it over and im wondering if i will have to pull the starter off or raise the motor? How did you guys do it?

 

when I put my headers and cat on my 01 it was pretty easy, taking the starter off would have been easier looking back at it but I had room to do everything without any issue had lots of room. The back bolts can be a pain but that is just because of the headers style.

 

No need to remove anything but the old headers (lol). Its a simple take bolts out, put on headers, put new bolts in. Make sure you get metal gaskets, theyll last longer than the crappy paper ones that they usually come with. Ive had to replace my gaskets many times due to crappy seals.

If your bolts are rusted to all hell (which they prolly are), blast them with some WD-40, PB plaster, liquid wrench or w/e you want and let them soak over night. What you can also do is get a torch and heat up the bolts.

Worse case senerio, you break a bolt off in your block, gotta get a drill and tapping set ( liike 30 from sears), drill out the bolt and retap the block. Not that hard either, but if your careful that shouldnt happen.

 

Do you have a welder? My last resort would be to drill and tap the head. If you have access to a welder you can weld a nut to the end of the broken bolt and back it out. This even works when the broken shaft of the bolt is flush with the surface. I have done this hundreds of times and it works very good. Just remeber to unhook your battery when you weld on the vehicle.

Also beat the bolts with a hammer before you try to remove them it can help free them.

 

took my tires off(needed rotated anyway) and took my plastic liners off. super easy to get to then. you can see everything that you are doing. i also used remflex gaskets and stage 8 locking headers bolts. knock on wood, no leaks yet.