AWay

Long story short, my father has a 2.5l 986 that he enjoys flogging around. We thought it might make a fun weekend project to throw some cheap go-fast bits on it to spice things up a little. It's admittedly not worthy of any $3k exhaust/header combo.

Just curious if anyone has installed an exhaust or header from ebay? They all seem to be quite similar and I'm guessing made by the same manufacturer.

Here's an example of each.
Exhaust
Headers

If they're seriously not worth the time, I'll just can the idea. (ie: terrible fitment, droning, will rust out in a month, etc.) But for less than $500 total investment, it would give us something fun to do one Saturday.

mikstew

They look pretty but they are probably ****. I wouldn't be surprised if the company who makes them has never even test fitted them. Thats how these Chinese companies operate. They take measurements of the car, give them to their CAD engineers, they crank out the drawing, send it off to be mass-fabricated, and then toss it on ebay. There was a company that I got some parts from "SSAUTOCHROME" who also had various other names on ebay, and their headers were utter garbage. They looked like they were welded by monkeys even though the ebay pics looked just as good as the ones you posted. I'd be careful.

AWay

Understood, and the very reasons I'm skeptical. Just wondering if anyone has any first hand experience with them.

mikstew

Keep us posted if you do buy it, though. If it's good I'd gladly buy a set for that price!

cretinx

A lot of people **** on eBay - however, you can get some incredible finds if you know what you're looking for and search hard - I've had a ton of success on there by being careful and smart.

FIRST
With any exhaust, you want three components
1 - diameter of piping
2 - material
3 - mandrel bending

The diameter should be larger than stock, look for 2.25" or larger.

The material should be STAINLESS steel - certain kinds are made in America or China but as long as its stainless you should be ok - you're not driving your convertible on salt covered roads with great frequency anyways (I would hope).

The bends should be Mandrel - not press bent. If its not mandrel bending, walk away.

That said, the items you posted . . .

Those headers don't include catalytic converters - so they should actually make a lot of power!
HOWEVER - they'll also throw a CEL and won't be emissions legal (varies by state plus its a federal offense to run without a cat, and a $1500 fine potential).
You can defeat the CEL with tuning or with a spark plug defouler - look that up, I'm not going to get too into assisting you on running an illegal setup.

With the catback I would just make sure the piping diameter is large enough to elicit a performance gain.

My personal solution? Go custom. Someone can custom build you an exhaust for a price between eBay and the $3,000 aftermarket (I got a quote of $1,000 for labor and parts, all stainless/mandrel bent - keeping stock headers but deleting secondary cats and going with a single muffler to save weight). This way you get the piping you want.

Sumflow

Prey for surf.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cretinx

As long as its stainless you should be ok - you're not driving your convertible on salt covered roads with great frequency anyways (I would hope).

No point in living in a beach town if you can’t run a tonneau all year around. On a good day the waves splash across the road. Sometimes they pull in tourists. Just a cruise to the store will get the windshield covered in salt scum. Before 76' Porsches use to rust through. Ocean covered roads, would not have it any other way. So yeah we do drive our convertibles on salt covered roads rapidly with great frequency.

cretinx

wow - never even occurred to me that living by an ocean would expose the car to salt, being on the Great Lakes and whatnot.

Our big worry is the trucks dumping the **** right into the road.

G8RB8

I bought an OBX header on eBay for a Miata and was very happy with it. I think it was $120 or so and lasted over three years until I wreaked the car. I'll be getting another one soon for the Boxster and will report back.

Abby Normal

There was an article in this past Panorama about the guy who did the 3.4 conversion and bought the $100 headers and was happy with them.

AWay

Thanks for the replies all. It seems like it's easy to dismiss the headers due to price but the people who actually have experience with them praise them.

Heck for @ $100 it seems like they're worth a gamble.

Now the exhaust I'm still curious about. I don't understand how the ones pictured on ebay even fit due to the straight pipe tubing on either side of the muffler. Doesn't the stock muffler have curved inlet tubes attaching to the cats?

Abby Normal

I bought the $108 (shipping incl) ebay from seller motorsportpartz.
And they have come in and look great. I still can't believe the price. I'm about to pull the motor and do the clutch and IMS upgrade but will post how they work out.

harryrcb

The stock muffler is the same way and they clamp a U pipe to the muffler which then clamps to the intermediate pipes. You should be good, I have heard of only one other guy that got those and he said the he loved them. Price is right.

Ray S

Do a search. I haven't tried them on my car, but if memory serves there have been a few here and on the 996 board that have tried these headers (or similar) with good results.

Good luck.

PorscheDoc

The muffler (and headers) looks exactly like the stuff Maxspeed Motorsports sells or sold at one time. Surprisingly, they sound fairly decent, but IIRC they had just a hint of resonance on the highway. It has been about 4 years since I have seen one in person. Obviously chinese made, and I remember with the S model you had to drill an extra set of holes or something for the top mount. Haven't seen one in years though, so I don't know how they are holding up.

Fly911

For $300 you can get a set of headers and a muffler! Probaly not Fabspeed quality, but for 1/10th of the price it's definately worth a try! Combined with a chip and cone air intake filter, the combo might give you a good 20Hp. And great sound! Spending thousands of Dollars on a car that is worth less than $10k doesn't make sense, but here you can increase the fun factor for cheap money. Go ahead and buy!