Well, as some of you know, I recently bottomed out my Imagine Auto headers. The damage was really severe. The pictures really don’t show the extent of the damage but you get the idea……..





I did some research with regard to the replacement options and basically narrowed it down to three, Imagine Auto, EVO and S-Car-Go Racing. As I said, the damaged headers were purchased from IA.

After speaking with Rob King at S-Car-Go Racing, I asked him to send me pictures of his short tube headers since his website only had pictures of their long tube versions. After receiving the pictures I must say I was amazed!! The quality of workmanship was impeccable. One of the reasons I purchased my Europipe was due to its build quality and I can honestly say that the S-Car-Go headers are on par with this level of workmanship. And this judgment was made simply by viewing the pictures! Once I received them, I was even more impressed!!

The S-Car-Go headers use a slightly larger tube diameter than most of the others. They are made like the Europipe in that individual sections are TIG welded together to form the final shape. This differs than the others which are mandrel bent as I understand it.

I figured you would want to see some comparison shots so I will oblige. From top to bottom we have the stock exhaust manifold, the IA headers and the S-Car-Go headers.



These are close ups of the left group…….







These are close ups of the right group…….

 

The installation went very smoothly. One interesting difference has to do with the orientation of the pipes as they make the sweep to the turbos. I initially thought the S-Car-Go headers would hang lower than the previous IA headers. Not the case!! They actually orient the bends so that they lay somewhat flat towards the engine. Very smart!!!

Following are several pictures of the headers on the car…..









In the second picture below, you can see that they don’t hang any lower than the suspension cross member…..





All in all, I am extremely happy with the quality of these headers and with my purchase of them. Tomorrow I will be dynoing the car…..again. I will be running the Stage 4 Race program, the free flowing intake and these headers. I will report the results.

If anyone is looking for headers, I would highly recommend they consider the S-Car-Go headers. They aren’t cheap but the fit and finish and overall design is absolutely top shelf.

 

nice workmanship. seems like a large diff in volume between the turbo and exhaust ports, in comparison to the stock version. unless your heads have larger valves and much larger ported heads seems like your initial lag is going to increase. looking forward to your dyno results.

 

Nice work Ken.

 

have the same set picked them in san rafael rob found me a very slightly used euro pipe loud thanks agiin rob had two choices lg diam or smaller went for the larger maybe a little more lag but i hear they are a bit safer on the rods....last mod was an evo air box...... then some turbos fron kevin and i'll be set turbos have to wait till sell my 86 turbo...........the car is fairly fast now can't wait for the turbos steve

 

sounds like a really nice setup. curious as to why a larger diameter header would be easier on the rods?

 

Ken,

Since you are replacing the headers, have you thought about coating them?

 

As Oak mentioned, the larger diameter and longer primaries with stock K24's will yield more lag. But Ken should see some improvement on the top end if he had a larger compressor wheel.

 

looks to me the stock headers are pretty effecient. with plenty of "overhead" designed into it. unless, you plan on over building a mondo motor.

 

the s-car-go headers are a work of art, thank you for sharing!
fantastic car!
m.k.

 

Unless you are making over 800 ponies the stock headers can't be beat.. You have to do some grinding and polishing to improve the flow.

 

Ken, Curious.... What was the dyno results?

 

Dyno????

 

Kevin,

Do you have any guidance on where to grind? As as where not to? I plan on doing this myself then sending them out for a ceramic coating. If anyone has some helpfull hints I would accept them gladly.

Thanks,
Gunther

 

Do a search. Last year Kevin posted the proper technique for grinding headers.