[tfofkyle]

96-04 Pacesetter Mustang GT 4.6L 2 Valve LT Headers: eBay Motors (item 190433138927 end time Sep-18-10 10:33:05 PDT)

theres a link to them - these came with my 96 gt when i bought it from the previous owner. i received the matching x pipe from my girlfriend for a birthday gift. first impressions were good - everything looked decent. the last owner had taken the liberty of filling the egr bung with furnace cement - so it looked like i had to do an egr delete. at about 107k miles my valve stem seals went, and my car started using oil like crazy. so i bought some remanufactured npi heads, pi cams, and a pi intake, and dusted off the headers and put it all on.

installation: i could not get the headers in their proper location without lifting up the engine. even down to just the bare block, there was just no way the headers were going in. had to undo the motor mounts and lift the engine up several inches before i could gain enough clearance to feed the headers through. after mounting up the heads, and aligning the headers on the header studs, finger tightening every nut on - it took 8 hours total to tighten up every single header nut. dropping the k member wouldve probably been a better option. looking at the headers now - or what little i can see of them now - there is no way i would be able to tighten these headers now that everything is put back together. i was not able to get my stock dipstick out of my old manifold - and i actually broke the frpp one in the head changing kit i bought trying to fit it between the longtube primaries, so i ponied up $50 or so for the lokar flexible one off of jegs, which was still a pita to get aligned - but finally it went through the headers and seated fine. so with eveything tightened i went to fit the x pipe.

and heres where things get bad. the pacesetters have 3" collectors - which are way too big for a 4.6 application. maybe an ls1 or something of similar cubes, but i am just not flowing enough air to benefit from them. not only that - but the x pipe (and its only an x pipe - there is no h pipe. if you want one you must custom fab it) is a slip fit design. to this day i have still not been able to eliminate all of my exhaust leaks near the collectors. the passenger side o2 bung was in one of the primaries - not in the collector as it should have been. had blue collar performance move the bung for me. af ratio readings had been off due to this and it was throwing a code. the collectors are so far off its hilarious. theres another member on here that has these headers and his are fine - but mine were so far cocked off towards the driveshaft and passenger side skirt that i had to have my x pipe chopped up to make it even fit correctly. it ended up costing more than the x pipe itself. and the x pipe hangs extremely low. as in - i scrape with frpp b springs. thats like a .75" drop. honestly.

so with all of those things kinda sorta almost fixed youd think id be happy with them. nope. the check engine light was on due to the lack of egr. turns out when the computer notices the egr is removed it pulls timing. my car was slower than when it had the stock heads, cams, intake. it took a full on custom tune to get the car running right again - and even now i still sometimes lose to cars that i used to tie or at least come close to beating. to top off all of my fun, the car is starting to feel like its in need of a clutch job. and of course ive got some big beautiful longtubes draped right underneath my transmission. the paint has flaked off, and the tubes arent rusty, but my overall experience with them has really turned me off to pacesetter, and longtubes in general.