Vektor Headers on .2 GTS, install and quick review
 

Been reading up on header mods for the past 2 months. Finally bit the bullet and got a pair of the coated headers from the folks at Vektor. Wanted to do a quick write up on the install and a very non scientific review of the changes.

Review update 11/07/18
Been driving the car for about a month with the headers now, some updates on the TL DR
- Took it apart to get it reinstalled while applying plenty of anti seize (did not do so the first time), took me about 2 hours this time with the right tools
- The sound is glorious. Plenty of spooling sound on acceleration. Overall lots of increase in the deeper end. Coming out of a corner with the windows down is almost TOO LOUD. It's hard to capture the sound on video, so imagine its about 10-20% louder IRL than in video. Or compare it with other similar videos for difference.
- The car overall feels quite a bit more responsive. Again, not a scientific measurement by any means.
- The headers does come below the rear crossmember by about 10mms or less depending on where on the crossmember you measure (its slightly lower near the middle vs the side) but I'm not too concerned

Reposting the sound video from later in the thread here


TL;DR
Installation was a lot harder than anticipated
The amount of sound increase was a big surprise. The car is so loud now i don’t feel like i need sport cats anymore (at least for now)

Detailed review -
So I finished the job on Friday night, and have been driving the car for the past 4 days. The sound increase is surprisingly significant. Overall there's a much louder bass sound to the exhaust. I have been trying to make sure the effect isn’t just placebo, as there was a two week gap between the last time i drove the car with OEM headers and when i finally finished the install. So I will point to some things I used as “control” -

Sound

• With windows up im actually pretty happy with the sound of the car now, where as I HAD to have windows down before.
• Switching between regular and sport mode while idling makes a pretty big audible difference now. Where as I remembered it didn’t before.
• Even with PSE off, the car gets pretty loud between the 3-4k rev range. Above 5k the car just screams, as if the PSE turned itself on. I definitely did not recall this happening previously.
• Above 5k rev in sport mode, the burbles basically turns into gun fires, which i’ve heard people say similar things after adding sport cats. Below 5k, the burbles are deeper sounding.
• Lastly, the wife has also confirmed that the car does in fact sound louder, and was actually annoyed by it… So ya, there’s the ultimate proof :-)

One CON to the mod is that, because it changes the pulsation of the engine sound, when I pull my car into my garage, it creates this weird pulsating sound similar to the effect of wind buffeting have on your ears, which is actually quite annoying. This only happens in small enclosed space where the sound is bouncing off walls nearby, you will not experience this out driving.

Another thing I noticed since the install is when the car is parked and shut off, theres a really high pitched electronic noise (i believe this is the turbo?). It lasts for a good minute. I do recall the sound, but don't remember if it used to last this long. Would be great if other 18 GTS owners can confirm. [edit] Folks below have confirmed this is normal for .2 car, most likely sound coming from the turbo as it cools or spins down.

Again, these are weird “controls” I’ve found to level myself from just describing potential placebo effects. If you experience any of the above ALREADY with your GTS please chime in.

Now with the butt dyno -
One thing I hated before is that i would have my car with auto stop start when im stuck in stop go traffic on the highway. It saves a lot of gas but the downside was the car’s response went down significantly. As you all know, when cruising in auto stop start, the engine basically goes below 1k rev. Stepping on the gas pedal would first bring it back up to normal rev range, before finally kicking up the revs. Now with the headers, the time the car takes to do that has reduced significantly. Going from cruise mode to power mode feels a lot more instant now and is less of an annoyance.

Overall it does feel more responsive. I get shoved into my seats a bit more when i slam on the pedal. But again, these could be side effects from the louder exhaust noise or placebo, so take it for what it is.

I will try to record some more clips over the weekend, but below is a quick recording of “first breathes” after the install

Pictures

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...737e1260ac.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...b13629179e.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...a9ba21fa56.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...7659f3cbf4.jpg
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Now this is my first time working on a car, EVER. So please read what I’m about to say with that context. After reading up on a various instructions and first hand experiences on the forum, I figured it should be a pretty easy job. Bought a torque wrench, a triple square bit, and a 12mm socket, figured i would be done with the job on the same day. Spoilers alert, I was WRONG.

I’m just gonna say the instructions you find online and in forum reviews oversimplifies things, by a LOT, especially for a noob. The installation ended up taking nearly 2 full days, with a two week business trip in between. (It worked out nicely since I used the time to buy some more tools online and have them shipped while I was out.) After multiple trips to lowes, and i still ended up buying all this from amazon

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...ddbbbf030a.jpg


All your tools should be in the smallest possible size to work on this car. Initially I had a set of ⅜ inch tools, but its like giving ants human sized utensils and asking them to eat with it. Ended up moving to ¼ everything which made the job much easier.

The tools you will actually need:
¼ 10mm triple square bits. Find the smallest possible ones, they are usually called stubby sets
12 and 13mm ¼ sockets (12 for the actual bolts on the car, 13 for the double bolt method to remove the studs)
¼ wrench / ratchet
Swivel joints
¼ extensions

The headers came in some pretty nice packaging (hard foam pieces built around the shape of the headers) and don't mind the weird "action shots" that makes it look like its from some low budget porn. I filmed myself doing some of the work as part of my youtube dream, but thats for another day.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...4c157b5fb3.png


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...5650bbe647.png

Now before you start, know that the driver side will be way harder than the passenger side. So you might want to start with the passenger side to get some practice. I also debated about what i should get to lift the car, I looked up quick lift quit a bit. But I ended up getting a set of race ramps, which is what you saw in my video. They are absolutely amazing. The simplest way to any work on your car that doesn't involve the wheels coming off. And the best is they are NOT mechanical. 30 seconds to set them up and you will NEVER run into any issues. Gives plenty of clearance to work under the car. Highly recommended.

Now onto the actual work, first, you need to detach the manifold’s connection with the turbo. These are connected by 3 bolts and 3 studs. On the passenger side, this is very straight forward. But after removing the bolt, being a noob, i got stuck with the studs that were still attached.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...7565e1a5a9.png

Some of the studs would come off with the bolt, like the one on the left in the pic below (same thing as above, shot from different angle). There's also a metal piece to the right that holds the manifold in place. This will also need to be removed (i think these are new to the 2018 cars as well, did not see them in any instructions on 2017 cars)
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...703d9d5a5b.png

The studs will need to be removed as some are threaded on both the turbo and the manifold, and because the way the manifolds are angled, it’s impossible to just “slide it off” with the studs attached.

After some research and youtube videos, I learned the double nut method. Which might be familiar to many people who have done this kind of work before. Essentially you put two nuts (ideally pretty thin ones) on the stud. And you start unscrewing the inner nut, which will push up against the outer nut with nowhere to go. At which point it would force the stud to unscrew.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...9ce547ec70.png
double nutted!

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...610e570f1a.png
it finally came off!!

With the three studs and bolts detached, you can now start removing the bolts holding the manifold to the engine. This is pretty straightforward with a triple square bit. There are nine of them so make sure you get them all.

Once that’s done, you would think the header would just come out, but guess again! Got stuck on this for a good 20 minutes. And this is when i started the original thread asking for help!

Turns out the OEM manifold have an internal tube that comes out just a little bit which holds on to the inside of the turbo connection (as m3thod mentioned in that thread). The folks at vektor gave me a pro tip - I ended up taking a flat head screwdriver and pried lightly between the turbo and manifold's connection. The manifold came right off. I stopped filming a lot of this after this point because i got so frustrated thinking that the headers won't come off after all that work!
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...3ef1fad77b.jpg
(first piece down!)

Now moving onto the driver side, the two bolts and studs on the bottom side comes right off with methods mentioned above. But there’s a very tricky bolt and stud that’s reverse bolted from the inside (god knows why). And this is probably by the far the most difficult bolt to remove from this whole thing. Check out the tight spacing in the pic below...
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...92e0ce2c59.jpg

BUT once you know how it should be pretty easy. Quickly you will figure out the spacing inside does not allow any sort of tool to operate inside. Ask me how i know, got a ratchet stuck in there for a good hour. Speaking of clearance, i wonder how much clearance i have left with that ratchet hanging off the car??
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...bd14e7003b.png

What you want to do is use a ratchet extension with a swivel connector like the image below.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...7822a3e80c.jpg

Before jumping in, you want to first remove the turbo / cat head shield. There are four screws total. Two on the side (where the wheel is) which are very obvious and straightforward. One on top, which you should be able to reach with a smaller ratchet with torx bits. And then there’s one on the other side of the turbo, which is close to where that last bolt is. For this one, you need a bit of patience and a small extension. For the exact position of the screw, search for any sport cat install instructions online

Once all the screws are removed, the heatshield should come loose and can be moved around. I wasn’t able to take it out completely, but basically moved it out of the way to make enough clearance to reach that final bolt and stud attaching the turbo to the header.

Now with the extended ratchet, you want to reach in from the tire side, right above the turbo / sport cats areas. With some patience, you should see your tool come out from the other side, reaching exactly where that last bolt is. Because of the tight spacing, I had to reach in with just the extension and swivel joint. Once the tool came out from the other side, i attached the 12mm socket and was able to loosen the last bolt. This is a little hard to explain, but see the picture below. The solid line is where you want longer extension to roughly be, the dotted line is where your shorter extension after the swivel should reach behind the turbo. The circle is where the tool should reach on the inside of the header, which is exactly where the bolt is.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...aa58ec2bcb.png

Once that’s done, you reach in there with your fingers and screw on a 13mm nut and then a 12mm nut. Now swap out the socket to a 13mm socket, get that on the 13mm nut, and the stud should come right off! This got me stuck for a good few hours. I had tears of joy when the bolt finally came off. I think the chat snippet with the folks at vektor shows u how excited i was

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...853b08ab45.png


With the three bolts and studs out, you can now start removing the bolts holding the header to the engine just like the passenger side.

Once that’s done, you will notice there’s a metal rod / tube right by where the header connects to the turbo (unlike the passenger side). This will stop you from sliding the header off. As far as I know, this is the turbo wastegate actuator, and all you have to know its a major pain in the ass for header removal that only exists in 2018 cars.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...130a8c2359.png

So I don’t THINK you can take the entire thing off, as both sides have a pretty complex piece holding the rod in place (see the info from vektor below).

First you need to loosen the two bolts on the side with a QR code, which gives you some room in shifting the rod. From there, you want to pull your header out as much as possible, which pushes against the rod. You should notice it’s SUPER close to coming through. Then with another person or your other hand, you want to pull on the rod ever so gently, but with enough force, while pulling on the header. It should come right out. I think this chat shows how excited i was...

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...3e24eef260.png



Now I didn’t find a better way of doing this. Folks at Vektor have suggested that I might want to loosen the turbo which would give you more clearance, feel free to give those a try but that just seemed like way too much work!

Now the fun part is putting it all back together. Most of it is pretty straight forward. Except for bolts attaching the header to the engine - due to the bends on the vektor headers, there’s VERY little room for some of the bolts. I ended up getting a set of stubby ¼ triple squares which made the job possible.

The only thing to take note of here is if you remember the the PIA bolt on the driver side from earlier. It was reverse bolted because for some reason Porsche decided to only thread the hole on the header (instead of both header and turbo like everywhere else). Vektor gave me a piece of bolt + stud all in one (not sure what its called, see image below), but it was too short as I needed to bolt the other side as well. Hopefully going forward they will provide people with a piece that fit this better.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...d2a22ef2f5.jpg

I ended up taking the OEM stud and bolting it on both sides, which held it together pretty well.

So that’s it! Make sure you put everything back together. Oh and I ended up torquing all the bolts at around 16-18 ftlb.

So after doing all this work, despite it being extremely frustrating at the time, it was a very rewarding experience. And also now i know how much work goes into this, i would never have other people do this work on my car. Call me OCD but a lot of this required very careful work. I'll trust myself for that TYVM.

Lastly, i want to say big thanks to the peeps at vektor. As you can see from my chat snippets, they were genuine people who REALLY helped me along the way. 5 stars for customer service :)

I love carmine red! ultimately picked this color to stay a little more low key, happy with the choice but would totally do a carmine red if i get another one (if ever)

Regarding the clearance, that's something i've been trying to figure out. The driver side definitely sticks out a lot more than the OEM.

Did a quick ad hoc comparison just now, the driver side does in fact stick out about a little less than half an inch compared to the lowest point of the car! Measured it more precisely i ended up losing about 11mm

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The pulsation is probably due to the equal length runners. With the equal length runners, you have equal crank-angle spacing of the exhaust pulses noises. With the correct engine speed/frequency and right distance from walls, the sounds waves are probably going in-phase and you get amplification while echoing off the walls. With the stock headers and odd-ball/unequal spacing of the exhaust pulses reaching the turbo, the pulses won't go in-phase and amplify.That's my guess. If you rev the engine to a higher speed, my guess is the pulsation will go away in the garage.

As for the high pitched noise..... do GTS turbos have ball bearings? Ball bearing turbos are known to take a minute to spin down compared to journal bearing turbos which typically spin down much quicker. But I would be extremely surprised if it had ball bearing turbos. But it could still just be the turbos spinning down.

Anyway, here's an example of spin-down of a ball bearing turbo:

I'm trying to think if the noise could be something else. Coolant pumps still running? And it basically just resonates through the exhaust system.

Ya not too worried about the pulsing sound, as it only happens every now and then in my garage where the walls are right against the car.

I'm thinking its the coolant pump. Again, might not have anything to do with the header swap. Would be great if some stock GTS owners can confirm... But here a quick crappy video recording of the sound

Journal bearing would seem like some old school tech in these cars.. Just IMO. Judging by how fast these cars hit peak torque they've got to be ball bearing..

OP, very interesting that you have stock cats.. Maybe getting bypass pipes or sport cats can turn that "putt putt" buffeting sound into a nice deeper rumble. I have bypass pipes and fabspeed header and my car has a mean idle. I too have the gun fire. It's insane under bridges.

Bypass pipes will net you more hp/torque. Glad that you definitely feel like you picked up power! What does the engine/exhaust sound like under load and at redline? Has the howl/tone changed?

My car makes the exact same noise. Are you tuned?

First off, nice write up and unbiased review.
I think it sounds great, not too loud and I cannot hear any unusual pulsations, but perhaps in real life it is more pronounced.
With Sport cats I think you get a similar machine gun sound in Sport mode, I can only imagine the sound from sport cats in combination with headers. Might be VERY loud.

One of my first mods was getting the T9 Design auto start/stop module. Its cheap, easy to install and you never have to deal with auto on/off again. Look into that if you never want to deal with auto stop.

Confirmation that my 18 GTS makes a similar sound sometimes after shutting down. Has nothing to do with the headers and is normal. Dont know what it is, but no need to be concerned.

Your tape measure photo is exactly what I always wanted to see. I had gotten several PM's from people looking for headers telling me that the Vektors hang the lowest of all aftermarket headers.
I made this comment on one of my many Vektor header posts and was told that I was making it up.. See cut and paste response below:

Quote:
Originally Posted by PTS-BRG https://rennlist.com/forums/images/buttons/viewpost.gif
Those gentle bends and even length tubes also reduce the amount of clearance from the road.
...they also reduce rear end clearance by several inches.
No. Now you're just making up crap. How credible are your results going to be when you just make up things like this without ever having laid a finger on the actual product?
__________________
Excellence through the Pursuit of Perfection
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So, I appreciate your photographic proof that it hangs lower than the lowest part of the car thus reducing ground clearance. This should be sufficient to prove that the first thing that will scrape the road in the rear will be the drivers side header. I was told (and now know for certain) that the equal length of the pipes and less aggressive bend design of the Vektors does in fact reduce ground clearance (by 1/2) but couldn't prove it because I dont have a set to measure. I am trying to get a picture from one of the guys who told me this showing that the Vektor is actually 3" lower than the factory headers, which will again support my position that Vektor claimed I was "making up crap"

Who's making up crap now Vektor? Basic666?

I know many of you think I'm just a nutcase making up sh!t for some vendetta I have. But, I swear to you that every bit of the information I write I have gotten from people sending me PM's and email.
My opinion is just that, my opinion, but if I make a claim I have support in the form of reports from others and I'm not just creating text from thin air.

PROVEN: The Vektors hang lower than the factory headers and every other third party manufacturers headers. Just like I said. Now onto the dyno results.

If you look at the history of loosing ground clearance and headers for Porsches, it's WAY less than some others. In the end this is all somewhat misleading because at 11mm lower than the crossmember, it's still not the lowest point on the car. If you hit something big enough or hard enough to take out the header, chances are you've got several other parts and problems to worry about as well.

Lol PTS appreciate your input. You were right about losing clearance (several inches would be an exaggeration though)

I just checked again - the only parts i found to be even lower were the flaps in front of all the wheels. They were about a half inch closer to the ground, about an additional 25mms compared to the headers. So any speed bump that may scrape would have to scrape the rear wheel flaps first (i have FAL for the front), which have yet to happen since I got the car. Another scenario I can think of would be any debris that might be in middle of the road. At which point like vektor mentioned i doubt a few mm would make a difference in scrape vs no scrape.

So I'm not loosing any sleep over it. Let's not turn this into a back and forth shouting match please.

Has anyone installed JUST the headers from another manufacture? That would be an interesting comparison at least in sound. I remember reading folks with just headers installed did not notice much different in sound, so the amount of sound difference i've been experiencing have definitely been a pleasant surprise

Once again you post up falsehoods. This independent review has clearly debunked your puffery on two occasions in this thread. Just accept the fact that the product sits nearly 1/2" lower than the factory .

The pulsating phenomenon is just real-world indirect proof the runners are in-fact equal length, at least based on what I learned in physics way back in the day.

There is only one passenger vehicle car currently sold on the market with ball bearing turbos that I'm aware of and that's the Ferrari 488 with IHI turbos. They also use abradable coating on the compressor side, FYI. Just some newer turbo tech making it into the market. The only other passenger vehicle I know that had a ball bearing turbo was the Ford Powerstroke diesel engine in their trucks, ~2008 release time frame and that was a Garrett turbo. In commercial vehicles where performance and fuel economy is more important because of the sheer number of miles they rack up a year, ball bearing turbos are more common. But ball bearings cost orders of magnitudes more than journal bearing. Think like 50x more. So.... yeah, extremely uncommon for passenger vehicles. It's also the reason why commercial vehicles can justify the extra cost, because they rack up so many miles that their fuel efficiency gain makes up for the extra cost of the ball bearing.

The noise in the video sounds like an auxiliary pump and I'd guess water. Probably to prevent hot spots in the head and also keep some coolant flowing through the turbos to prevent oil coking.

25.4mm = 1 inch. So 11mm = 0.433". Call it 0.3"-0.5" to account for measurement tool resolution and accuracy. No surprise on the headers hanging a little low. MotoIQ article shows it pretty well.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlis...1732374d83.jpg

Side note: foam with cutouts for holding the headers in the packaging?