Fast Intentions Long Tube Headers Install/Review
 

Review and commentary (longish post) - A few weeks ago, I picked up a used pair of Long Tube Headers from a guy going TT. They were in good shape, but had obviously been used for a little while. I did a bit of reading and settled on ceramic coating them through Jet-Hot.

I had planned on doing the install myself, taking a weekend on jackstands and hoping for the best, but an acquaintance of mine from a local VQ enthusiast group (henceforth referred to as 'Craig', 'The Great Craig', 'Blessed be the Craig' or 'Craigster') was kind enough to volunteer his work space, complete with a lift. This made a huge difference.

Craig and I had this on the lift probably just after 8:30 am Sunday morning. If you have any interest in installing these and have read any of the DIY guides, you know the basics - remove intakes up top, remove undershroud below, disconnect cats at exhaust, mark your steering knuckle and disconnect, remove existing setup, replace with new setup, profit! This was the basic plan we followed, with none of the usual headaches, and all of the unusual ones.

Our first complication came in removing the intakes, specifically the hoses connected to the valve covers. I'm running Z1 intakes with the Z1 hoses and I will say that Z1 makes an excellent hose; it absolutely seals strongly and we actually broke the plastic connector that mates with the valve cover trying to get the hose off to remove the drivers side intake. Not good. More on this later.

From there, the header removal was pretty straight forward, and by 11:30 we'd removed the heat shields and the bolts/studs fastening the headers on both sides (pour one out for the Craigsters arm hair, destroyed in the line of duty by carefully sharpened AC line brackets and other random clips in the Japanese torture tunnels). Passenger side was relatively easy.

Lunch break and beer!

Steering knuckle was marked and disconnected around 1 and headers were off a couple minutes after that. We took the headers and cats out as a single unit, saving any struggles with the demon bolts. We really had no issue pulling out the drivers side heat shield either, once we were ready to move it as a unit.

Complications 2, 3, and 4 all occurred shortly thereafter, and they were the real time wasters. Complication 2: Fast Intentions requires you to shift some of the studs for the headers, and unfortunately one of the tapped holes on the engine block appears to have been tapped incorrectly. I destroyed a stud trying to thread it back into the block, had to use the double bolt trick to remove it. We were able to use a much shorter bolt in place, and that appears to have done the trick (no exhaust leaks yet - fingers crossed)!

Complication 3: O2 sensor on the passenger side cat did not want to come out. Fine. It was a stupid O2 sensor anyway and it shall be replaced by a better one. Plugged the O2 bung on that side after wasting more time trying to extract it.

Complication 4: The 2012+ 370zs have a factory oil cooler that's not terribly effective. The Fast Intentions kit has a plate to block off the oil cooler line from one side; but either I missed something in the instructions, or they simply don't provide a solution for the other side where it continues to drain forever. I don't blame them, I probably missed something, but I needed a solution. Autozone was closed (WHY?! WHY ARE YOU NOT OPEN PAST 5 ON SUNDAYS, AUTOZONE?! THIS IS WHEN PEOPLE NEED YOU!) but once again Craig came to the rescue with a rubber cap that we were able to creatively resize with a knife to the appropriate inside diameter. Coolant leak solved, we continued on.

We had new headers on the car relatively quickly, maybe 45 minutes for the reinstall plus the slow time consuming process of tightening all the bolts. Great, finished!

Back to complication 1... the solution for the broken plastic tube was a plastic epoxy. This involved me holding the component in place for about 30 minutes while we waited for it to harden. The good news is it worked. After all of this, started the car!

Annnddd no exhaust leaks!

Sound: I've always dreamed of piloting a fighter jet. Since I was too lazy to join the air force, instead I'll drive a car that sounds like a fighter jet. Sound on this is massive, huge low end rumble. Do not install these headers if you are weak of will, lacking in testicular fortitude, pregnant, lactating, or low in iron. There is definite drone from 2k - 2.5k, the VQ hiss is audible on deceleration, and you will definitely discover whatever pieces of your cabin are loose. Solutions: Gut your cabin for weight reduction (and The Great Craig says to clip those pesky AC lines that make installation of the drivers side headers so annoying while I'm at it), drive at 3k rpms, and never decelerate! It's actually less drone from 2.6k rpms onwards than I had with just the Fast Intentions catback. I'm enjoying it.

Performance: There is a definite boost in low end torque, but since I'm running fairly lean at this point, I'll wait to really test this until I'm tuned.

Attached a couple pictures for your viewing pleasure! Note the nice red for the ceramic coating - matches my engine bay quite well.

Congrats on the installation and Enjoy!

My guess is that you purchased these LTH's second hand from Kasey M. If so, he had our 34 row oil cooler kit installed on this car, that is why you received a block off plate from him. We included a plug for the other end of the coolant line, but my guess is that it's still installed on his car.

With the 2012+ 370Z's you will need to install our coolant cross-over line to retain your OEM style "oil cooler" system. Kasey M. ditched the factory "oil cooler" system in exchange for our 34-row cooler, and therefore you don't have the coolant cross-over line.

If you'd like to purchase one you can always give us a call.

Thank you very much.

- Kevin
(805) 522-3278

Kevin, Thanks very much for the response! Yes, I did purchase from Kasey. I hope you didn't take my comment as negative since I was actually more confused than anything and I appreciate your explanation. We can discuss the reasons for that confusion in another fashion, but I'll add here that I've really appreciated dealing with FI as a company. Even though I bought these headers used, Kevin was quick to send me installation instructions for this project and the quality of the headers as well as the hardware kit was exceptional. Thanks again Kevin! I'm enjoying my complete FI system very much.

Nice notes! Just one comment here... the popular opinion on the board is that the OEM cooler doesn't do much.... I have found this to be far from the truth. I removed mine for most of the year and ended up reinstalling in not too long ago.

Without - cruising at 95mph in about 90 degree heat my oil temp would stabilize around 260. After putting it back on, similar conditions, about 225. I think the effects of it are less pronounced since it regulates the temperature against the coolant temp which can easily reach 200+ degrees during normal usage... whereas an air cooler will easily get oil temps down to 180's or even lower.

Please take the numbers with a grain of salt, as my car is pretty far from stock. But the 35 degree difference does show that the OEM cooler does make some impact.

Hmm very good to know. My plan is to eventually (before summer) buy an oil cooler anyway, but I was genuinely curious whether or not I'd see a difference.

When I did mine. I removed the O2 sensors first so that I wouldn't have to fight with the manifold/cats on the ground moving around. I did what you did. Remove the manifold and cats as one unit.

The right side took about 45 minutes from removing the old and installing the new.

The left side took awhile. My heat shield did not want to come out. That took most of my time. By the time I finished up the left side. My hands looked and felt like they went 15 rounds with a pisssed off alley cat. With all of the screw ends, bolt ends and bracket corners on that side. I had about 4 hrs total on this side. With breaks (for band aides and drinks) pushed it to about 6 hrs.

Did you start it up without the exhaust hooked up? Lets just say that one neighbor called the cops on me. :rofl2:

The red JetHot coating looks good. :tup:

Hopefully you get that valve cover fixed. :tup:

Interestingly, the heat shield came right out for us. We had taken it off, and just kind of moved it enough to get access to the bolts, slid it the rest of the way out when we removed the cat + header combo.

As for the O2 sensor... we started the removal with everything still connected/in-place. Our error was in using a cheaply made O2 sensor removal socket, the walls of which were thin enough to permit to flex as we torqued it, meaning it did not maintain a firm grip on the O2 hex. We thought it was turning the hex; instead it was stripping it off. Bummer, but already replaced.

I laughed at your description of the pissed off alley cat - sounds accurate. Both myself and the Craigster were pretty beat up by the end.
I did not dare starting the car without the exhaust, we were in a small room with excellent acoustic qualities, and I've already lost enough hearing playing in dive bars ;) but that's pretty funny.

Thanks for stopping in, Rusty! I really appreciate you taking the time to talk me through fixes for the valve cover!

You're welcome. :tiphat: Anytime you want to ask a question, feel free. :tup:

Motto of my company. "You got questions, we got answers. You got problems, we got solutions." :rofl2: Name of my company is Bull Shite Consulting. :eek:

No offense taken at all. :tiphat:

Yes I figured you had purchased from Kasey. His situation was unique when running our oil cooler kit with long tube headers on his 2015 Z. There were a few different parts needed with his kit vs. what comes standard with our long tube headers.

Glad to hear that you're enjoying them and that the instructions helped you.:tup:

The Jet Hot coating looks great. First time I've seen it in RED. What's the temp rating on that finish?

- Kevin

Temp rating for the extreme coating is 2,500F.

I do like it in red. Jet-Hot offers a number of different temperature finishes, mine was actually an in-between range (looking back over past messages to see if I can find the exact rating - I want to say 1300°). I'll find out.