Has anyone installed their own headers in their dakota? Just curious if I am going to have to remove the steering shaft and starter. And also, how tough were the header to manifold bolts to remove?

 

all u gotta do is put some elbow greese into it, you dont gotta remove nuttin but the wheel wells for some clearance, and jack up the front end take off the front wheels, and i think everyone who has headers on this forum has put them on themselves lol

watch out for them broken studs

 

yea broken studs will ruin you. sorta, but it's another step that will kill a lot of time if you've never had to do it before.

It's even possible that they are broken before you even get to them.

 

Ive done them on my Altima GXE, my G35x and my RX8. The altima was the easiest. The G35X had a bolt snap and had to EZOut it, and that took about 45 minutes of my time.

 

For installing headers on the 06 Dak, did you all remove the heatshield and headers from under the truck, or were you able to access the headers and remove them from just popping the hood? Trying to figure out the easiest way to possibly access all the bolts to get the headers off.

 

So Lou's custom exhaust told me its not a good idea to put headers on my dakota because alot of people who swap their headers out come back within a year wanting their original headers to be put back on. They said they always leak... they also quoted me $600 if they did it...thats all labor...

 

I bought some JBAs and they were not decked right. If I hadn't noticed it before installing, I would have had one nasty exhaust leak.

Shortly after I went turbo and my mechanic advised me to stay with the stock manifolds over headers for a turbo application.

My set-up spools insanely fast so I like to think he was right.

Anyways here is what the JBAs looked like when I got them, MAKE SURE YOU CHECK BEFORE INSTALLING!!!!

Notice how you can see the light under the two center openings
IMAG0432.jpg

IMAG0431.jpg

 

hrm. I didn't check that' I'm glad I plan on putting OEM gaskets on instead of the mushy ones that my Gibsons came with. My Gibson instructions say this;

AFTER WARMUP LET ENGINE COOL DOWN AND TORQUE HEADERS ONE MORE TIME TO PREVENT LEAKS. THEN AFTER 200 TO 300 MILES RE-TORQUE HEADERS AGAIN. THEN WE RECOMMEND DOING THIS AT EVERY OIL CHANGE. THIS WILL ENSURE GIBSON HEADERS TO LAST TO THEIR FULLEST POTENTIAL.

 

Frenic, did you already install the headers with the gibson gaskets? if so, how did the install go? I dont see the install going well...seems like it will be a pain in the @$$...

 

leave the factory manifolds and get a larger y-pipe, nothing is better then opening up that small hole, having headers going into that small opening is wasting alot of money, for 75.00 get a larger y-pipe and you will be much happier