I painted and wrapped the header, and installed it into the car today. I also stopped by ace and found some studs for the intake side, but unfortunately they weren't long enough really for the phenolic. Anyone see any problems with using bolts instead of studs on the intake manifold side?

Lastly, wrapping the header was a ton of trouble. I got fiberglass bits all over me and then when I went to put the header in the car, I fucked up half the runners lol. I redid it, but its not so pretty anymore, anyone know what to do with the frayed end?

Tomorrow, I will be installing the MTX-L and getting it wired up. I am working this week, so progress will be down to a crawl again. I am thinking tomorrow will be dedicated to setting up the MTX-L, Wednesday/Thursday will be the seat mount redux, and Friday I will get the intake manifold put on.

How do people wire up the narrow band simulator into the stock ECU? should I cut the old o2 and use the connector it has for the narrow band simulator or what?

For good studs, put two nuts on and snug them against each other, then put a wrench on the back one. This is called the two nut or double nut method.

For the wrap, fold it back in on itself than use two clamps to tie down and corners that might catch on stuff.

Thanks for the suggestions Josh.

I redid the wrap today, just because it frayed so much. I got it in this time with little if anything damage to the wrapping, but my #2 runner was a bit short. No big deal really.

here are some pictures:
https://www.miataforumz.com/attachme...ine=1325042298

https://www.miataforumz.com/attachme...ine=1325042298

https://www.miataforumz.com/attachme...ine=1325042298

Unfortunately, I spent the day redoing the wrap and didn't get started till late. But in the process, I did my EGR elimination as I was able to find a 1/2" compression fitting which fit on the EGR nipple. On the intake side, I have some plastic/foam similar to phenolic material which I will be using.

With that said, I orderd some zinc plated studs and copper nuts for the exhaust side and found some cheap longer studs which I will be trying on the intake side. I think it is ok to use bolts on the intake side, but I am hesitant to do it since i would rather shear off the stud on the manifold side rather than in the head.

Anyways, enough blabbering, tomorrow I will be assessing the MTX-L situation, I still need to figure out how to wire up the MTX-L narrowband to the stock ECU.

hey Track, does the engine feel stronger post-installation of the OBX? I've been pretty skeptical over this brand and stuff but the $400 piece from racing beat just sounds too much for me (coming from a guy who bought rmf replica headers for hondas for like $200+).

haven't ran it yet, but I will let you know. I am fixing a vacuum and exhaust leak, among a few other annoying issues.

(skip boring ? go to the bold Here)
Exhaust leaks are all fixed up. I got my idle AFRs down to something reasonable and drove her around the development, she did great. Sounds louder with the new header, but I suspect the majority of that is due to the fact my big shifter boot tore and is no longer in place.

With all that said, my header wrap has finally stopped smoking and my AFRs are looking decent, I am not sure exactly if I have any vacuum leaks normally, but my AFRs drop everytime I hook up the vacuum gauge. That tells me the vacuum gauge has a leak on its own, which I will deal with at another time.

Here:
Car feels great, all problems seem to be worked out and I think my lean condition before was due to a faulty o2 sensor rather than anything else. I will be taking the car out for a serious drive tomorrow as I have a shittacular amount of clean-up to do today. Stay tuned!

Drove the car today, still building up a base line for my AFRs. I seem to have a vacuum leak of sorts that goes and comes, but I can't be sure until I do some more testing and watching. Car is feeling great, I took out another 3/8" in ride height today. I am sitting at just over 4.5" front and 4.8" rear. I can't really go any lower in the front, so thats where I will be from now on.

Ok, so I can give an answer to this now:

I did not notice a power difference between this and the 2001+ header that was originally on my 1999. I wasn't expecting anything, but I did have a nice 4" wide flat spot in my stock downpipe from bottoming out on a speed bump/hump at some point.

Now the OBX header has some advantages, its a 4-1 which is nice. It also gave the car a nice deeper sound. I would say its probably lighter than the 01+ header and downpipe, but not by much more than a few lbs.

Disadvantages: the #4 runner is a bitch. I had the hardest time tightening the nut under it and it caused an exhaust leak for a short while. But other than that, I am satisfied. Mostly I moved to a one piece header for the wider collector and so I could wrap it (although you certainly can wrap the stock header).


Other things I tackled this weekend was redesigning my seat mount. That went successfully, I moved my seat back 3/4" and towards the trans tunnel 1". This has made it a lot more comfortable, but is forcing me to relearn the pedals a bit since the leverage has changed. it has also stopped it from hitting my door now.

That's about it. Up next is redoing the radiator ducting, and making a new undertray for the car. I am using coroplast this time around and will update how it goes and suggestions.

thanks for the reply.

Damn you get a lot of accomplished. Where did you buy your wrap? I want to do this before putting my 01 header on my '00.

http://www.siliconeintakes.com/


I bought the 50'x2". Don't buy the double thick stuff and try to keep 1/4" of overlap (or the least amount possible in other words).

Wear gloves and DO NOT itch your face. lol