DIY - PPE longtube installation
01-14-2013, 01:22 PM
#1
DIY - PPE longtube installation
Just wanted to let people who are on the fence about doing this by themselves know what kinda time frame they need to have and some things that I did on the install that aren't documented anywhere else.
And I can't believe we only have exactly ONE diy post on header installation in the forum!!
Basically, I followed the zchickz website, it has all the steps listed. so I won't repeat what was already stated. this post is more for a time estimation and just what I encountered.
I am by no means a mechanic, but I've done some work on the car myself, and so I'm no newb to ratchets and wrenches. If you're fairly new, I don't think this is a diy for you.
All work are done at a leisurely pace, not in a rush mode. So you may be able to get things done faster than me.
Tools I used so far are just regular wrenches, ratchets, sockets. you WANT to have those ratchet wrenches, preferably the thin ones, if not, you will need LOTS OF PATIENCE. oh and LOTS of extensions, both short and long ones. I also used a swivel.
The listed items are what I did on that day. They're not neccessarily in sync with the zchickz website steps.
So here we go:
Day 1 (roughly 3hrs by myself): remove intake, stb, cats, y-pipe, removed O2 sensor from manifolds.
note: when removing the cats, you'll need to reposition yourself to get access to the last bolt/nuts. a creeper would be nice, but not necessary. Might also want to rent the O2 sensor socket set from Autozone from day 1, cuz you gonna need it later on if not now. I left the o2 sensors in the cats here, cuz I didn't have the socket set. I was able to remove the front O2 sensors with just a wrench, think it's a 22mm.
Day 2 (1hr) - drained coolant
Day 3 (6-7hrs with a friend): removed coolant hardpipes, exhaust manifolds
note: passenger side hardpipe was a PITA. maybe b/c of the age of the car (bought new in 06), those damn hoses just wont come off the hardpipe. think there are like a total of 5~6 hoses connected to this one pipe. the bolt underneath the hardpipe that you need to remove will required mulitple extensions. get the longest ones you got. and have a friend crawl under to the socket in place. removing the driver side pipe was easier. you WILL need to disconnect the steering column. remove the entire U-joint. make sure you mark it first. the nuts on the manifolds are also tough to remove, in the sense that they don't get looser as you unbolt them until like the last thread or 2. you will need to use some strength to unbolt all 12, and a breaker bar. the rear bottom ones plus the driver front one are the hardest to get to.
Day 4 (3hrs by myself) - remove head studs, took me about 15min per studs using the double nut method.
Day 5 (9~10hrs with a friend) - extending the O2 sensors and install headers.
Note: the headers come with extension kit. If your Z is 03-04, your O2 sensors have 4-wires. Mine's 06 and my O2 have 5-wire. On top of that, the extensions provided come with 2 black, 1 white, and 1 blue wires. The oem wires are black, grey, white, yellow, and red. So being a super newbie on electrical stuff, I had no idea what to do. went to Lowes to get some wires for the fifth one first. but still dunno what to do with the 2 black wires, mainly b/c we couldn't tell which black is which. Worry that I would crossed them by accident, I ditch the extensions and made my own. 5 wires per sensor. that way I can see for sure that I didnt miss anything and wrapped them up with plastic cover. So if you're good with wiring/electrical stuff, this should be a cake for ya. Took us almost the whole afternoon just on that. Moving on to the actual headers installation. Driver side took some twisting like zchickz said, but it took us maybe 10min to get that side in. Once it passed the steering column, you're home free. align the gasket, header, and the block, and you're good. Passenger side is a different story. no problems going in, but there's a gold bracket that holds a light blue connector that got some clearance issue. it touches one of the primaries. So you can either try to remove the bracket, relocate the connector with zip tie, or do what I did, bent the bracket. I bent it just enough to clear. as rite now, it has about a thickness of a comic book between the primary and the bracket. Might need to aluminum foil that thing. the biggest hurdle for us was the passenger side front bottom hole. we could not get the bolt to bite the threads. took us 2+hours on that one alone. but we finally got it in, and went in smoothly. Also, the rear bottom hole on the driver side only have room for a wrench. no sockets. and in my case, no ratchet wrench (mine's too thick). the same one on the passenger side fit my ratchet wrench, so that was better. All the other ones are relatively easy, all you need are 14mm ratchet wrench, socket, and a short short extension. BTW, if you bought the hardware kit from RDZ during the GB, there are a total of 18 bolts. 4 of them are for the flanges to the y-pipe (I assume), and 14 for the header to the block. Yes, there are 7 bolts on each side. after with much struggling, I wrapped up the nite with insulating the long O2 sensor wires with the heat wrap (came with the hardware kit), and just to see how well it bolts to the XYZ-pipe. well, the remaining 4 bolts are too short. guess the flange thickness has something to do with it. All 18 bolts are of same length. so went to Lowes to get some longer ones the next day.
So far, I've spent a total of about 23hrs on this installation. Remaining work include putting the XYZ pipe, coolant pipes, intake back on its original place, and fill the car with coolant.
that's where I'm at for now, still need to put the car back in order to test drive. Hopefully it'll be done soon.
word of advice - be patient on this. you will encounter things that will frustrate you.
And I can't believe we only have exactly ONE diy post on header installation in the forum!!
Basically, I followed the zchickz website, it has all the steps listed. so I won't repeat what was already stated. this post is more for a time estimation and just what I encountered.
I am by no means a mechanic, but I've done some work on the car myself, and so I'm no newb to ratchets and wrenches. If you're fairly new, I don't think this is a diy for you.
All work are done at a leisurely pace, not in a rush mode. So you may be able to get things done faster than me.
Tools I used so far are just regular wrenches, ratchets, sockets. you WANT to have those ratchet wrenches, preferably the thin ones, if not, you will need LOTS OF PATIENCE. oh and LOTS of extensions, both short and long ones. I also used a swivel.
The listed items are what I did on that day. They're not neccessarily in sync with the zchickz website steps.
So here we go:
Day 1 (roughly 3hrs by myself): remove intake, stb, cats, y-pipe, removed O2 sensor from manifolds.
note: when removing the cats, you'll need to reposition yourself to get access to the last bolt/nuts. a creeper would be nice, but not necessary. Might also want to rent the O2 sensor socket set from Autozone from day 1, cuz you gonna need it later on if not now. I left the o2 sensors in the cats here, cuz I didn't have the socket set. I was able to remove the front O2 sensors with just a wrench, think it's a 22mm.
Day 2 (1hr) - drained coolant
Day 3 (6-7hrs with a friend): removed coolant hardpipes, exhaust manifolds
note: passenger side hardpipe was a PITA. maybe b/c of the age of the car (bought new in 06), those damn hoses just wont come off the hardpipe. think there are like a total of 5~6 hoses connected to this one pipe. the bolt underneath the hardpipe that you need to remove will required mulitple extensions. get the longest ones you got. and have a friend crawl under to the socket in place. removing the driver side pipe was easier. you WILL need to disconnect the steering column. remove the entire U-joint. make sure you mark it first. the nuts on the manifolds are also tough to remove, in the sense that they don't get looser as you unbolt them until like the last thread or 2. you will need to use some strength to unbolt all 12, and a breaker bar. the rear bottom ones plus the driver front one are the hardest to get to.
Day 4 (3hrs by myself) - remove head studs, took me about 15min per studs using the double nut method.
Day 5 (9~10hrs with a friend) - extending the O2 sensors and install headers.
Note: the headers come with extension kit. If your Z is 03-04, your O2 sensors have 4-wires. Mine's 06 and my O2 have 5-wire. On top of that, the extensions provided come with 2 black, 1 white, and 1 blue wires. The oem wires are black, grey, white, yellow, and red. So being a super newbie on electrical stuff, I had no idea what to do. went to Lowes to get some wires for the fifth one first. but still dunno what to do with the 2 black wires, mainly b/c we couldn't tell which black is which. Worry that I would crossed them by accident, I ditch the extensions and made my own. 5 wires per sensor. that way I can see for sure that I didnt miss anything and wrapped them up with plastic cover. So if you're good with wiring/electrical stuff, this should be a cake for ya. Took us almost the whole afternoon just on that. Moving on to the actual headers installation. Driver side took some twisting like zchickz said, but it took us maybe 10min to get that side in. Once it passed the steering column, you're home free. align the gasket, header, and the block, and you're good. Passenger side is a different story. no problems going in, but there's a gold bracket that holds a light blue connector that got some clearance issue. it touches one of the primaries. So you can either try to remove the bracket, relocate the connector with zip tie, or do what I did, bent the bracket. I bent it just enough to clear. as rite now, it has about a thickness of a comic book between the primary and the bracket. Might need to aluminum foil that thing. the biggest hurdle for us was the passenger side front bottom hole. we could not get the bolt to bite the threads. took us 2+hours on that one alone. but we finally got it in, and went in smoothly. Also, the rear bottom hole on the driver side only have room for a wrench. no sockets. and in my case, no ratchet wrench (mine's too thick). the same one on the passenger side fit my ratchet wrench, so that was better. All the other ones are relatively easy, all you need are 14mm ratchet wrench, socket, and a short short extension. BTW, if you bought the hardware kit from RDZ during the GB, there are a total of 18 bolts. 4 of them are for the flanges to the y-pipe (I assume), and 14 for the header to the block. Yes, there are 7 bolts on each side. after with much struggling, I wrapped up the nite with insulating the long O2 sensor wires with the heat wrap (came with the hardware kit), and just to see how well it bolts to the XYZ-pipe. well, the remaining 4 bolts are too short. guess the flange thickness has something to do with it. All 18 bolts are of same length. so went to Lowes to get some longer ones the next day.
So far, I've spent a total of about 23hrs on this installation. Remaining work include putting the XYZ pipe, coolant pipes, intake back on its original place, and fill the car with coolant.
that's where I'm at for now, still need to put the car back in order to test drive. Hopefully it'll be done soon.
word of advice - be patient on this. you will encounter things that will frustrate you.
Last edited by cyc5181; 01-14-2013 at 01:25 PM.
01-14-2013, 09:47 PM
#6
just to clarify, this is by no means a step by step instructions as I said before, if you like the step by step instructions with pics, here's the link I used:
http://www.zchickz.com/header1.htm
This is just for people to get an idea how long it takes to do this, and what potential hiccups will they face while working on this.
I didn't plan to post a DIY at the beginning, so I didn't take any pics of any. Plus at the pace I'm at, taking pics would've taken me even longer to do the install. hahahaha
anyways, thx for the advices, I'll take pics and do the step by step if I decide to write a true DIY install next time!
http://www.zchickz.com/header1.htm
This is just for people to get an idea how long it takes to do this, and what potential hiccups will they face while working on this.
I didn't plan to post a DIY at the beginning, so I didn't take any pics of any. Plus at the pace I'm at, taking pics would've taken me even longer to do the install. hahahaha
anyways, thx for the advices, I'll take pics and do the step by step if I decide to write a true DIY install next time!
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