qirex

anybody ever buy these?

$100/pair. any worse/better than stock?

wross996tt

looking at the outside is not what you need...you need to look at the welds for integrity and the interfaces inside to see how the air will flow. What do you want them for? If you think you are going to make power you will be disappointed.

Joe Weinstein

search the forums. Expert consensus is that until you've gotten well past 600hp in tuning,
the stock headers are as good or better than any aftermarket headers.
Yes, this means anyone buying headers for a stock or mildly tuned 996tt has been sold
a bill of goods, and has probably worse than wasted their money.

qirex

my left side header cracked and its either repair or replace it. It was one of those schnell ones that everyone started selling 3-4 years ago.

of course, my stock ones are buried in some speed shop in Arizona...

qirex

ah yes, im at ~600Hp now.

wross996tt

you get what you pay for...haven't you learned (from your cheapo schnell ones?)

Joe Weinstein

I would suggest you look for some stock ones on EBay or a local shop etc,
and smooth out the openings at the head, or have someone else do it for you.

ShokWaveRider

A Friend of mine purchased this exact set, we compared them to some top name headers, side by side. I do not want to name the brand we compared them with. They are almost identical! Nice an open, measurements within .5 of a mm in some case even more open that the names brand ones.

He has been running them for almost a year now with no issues. He actually purchased 2 sets because of all the bad press that folks have given these non name brand parts on the popular forums (Mostly from Vendors). He figured that if they cracked he could simply replace them. They are still going strong.

I convinced him to let me use them while he was waiting and they have been on my car for 2 months with absolutely no issues. I will probably have to pay him the $100.

qirex

yeah. its pretty funny cuz I paid ~$1800 for these as aprt of a 9ff powerkit.

of course I was surprised to see they looked EXACTLY the same as the $800 schnell set.

yeah, so after that experience getting ripped off (thank Jean-Pierre@9ff!!) i swore never to have it happen again.

These do look a teeny bit diff than the schenll ones, som maybe I lose a pony...

I have these on order now!

Thanks Shockwaverider!

TurboTodd

I just could not resist , a couple of months ago I purchased some cheap headers off of ebay. By cheap I mean $.99. Yes ninety nine cents plus $40.00 shipping for a total cost delivered to my house of $40.99. My expectations were low. I thought if I did not like them I would bolt them to my mailbox and make something cool out of them. Once I received them I was surprised that the quality was actually good. All the welds on the inside were smoothed out. Now I am thinking they will not fit properly. I installed them in about an hour with the supplied gaskets and the fitment was perfect. As far as performance they totally transformed my car. I am running a fab speed loud exhaust with 100 cell cats. The resonance in the car was terrible. I think it was actually louder in the car than out. With the headers installed 75% of the droan is gone. The car is quieter, idles smoother, spools faster and revs quicker. I guess my car really needed headers.
I would have paid 2k for these results. I am so glad that I took a chance on these cheap-os

Chuck Jones

There's been a lot posted on this subject along with dyno info...check the archives. The consensus is that unless you plan on going over 600 HP, a ported and polished set of STOCK Porsche headers is as good as or better than the Chinese look-alikes. There are a number of vendors who are selling headers under various proprietary names....most of which come from the Chinese and a side-by-side comparison would show little if any differences. I've seen some pretty ugly inside welds with slag and lumps here and there just waiting to turn your turbo into a paper weight. Some of the collectors look like something a first year shop student would put together.

I think that the consensus and previous research into this subject has concluded that staying with the well made Porshe stockers that are ported will save you a lot of money....and in some cases the cheapos gave an actual LOSS of low end torque as measured by dyno.

Some folks report good things...more power to them (literally and figureatively), but if it works, and works well, don't fix it.

qirex

yeah...the inside of the headers are AWFUL - you can see where they just capped off three tubes. There about 1" of middle pipe sticking out!!

wross996tt

Yep..we tried to tell you...at least you didn't get taken for $1800....

qirex

actually - heres a question - do the rear part(collector?) of the headers matter so much?

the manifold side looks pretty good actually - its just the turbo side that doesnt look so laminar.

For the engineers (or guys in the know) - isnt the flow pretty turbulent anyhow once it gets to the collector?

Is it possible that these headers are actually decent and NOT worse than STOCK? (notice Im not looking for BETTER - just NOT worse...)


thx!

Joe Weinstein

Internal flow is one thing, but for a turbo, keeping the pressure and heat up are the key points.
The Porsche unit minimizes heat loss because it is double-walled, and it is the shortest and
most compact. That will minimize pressure loss to the turbos, and minimize lag. For day-to-day
driving, and for any car that is not both highly modified and aiming for high-rev dyno numbers,
the stock headers are going to work better. Porsche engineers aren't idiots. They aren't going
to leave any power on the table in their designs that some weld-monkey in a Chinese shop is
going to quickly pick up for you... In fact, you stand to lose....