Paceguy and I put on my headers this past Saturday, and what a ride it's been...
We were pretty sure of ourselves after getting aspendog's on the weekend before, and even with double checking (we thought) and a few "comedy of errors" events, we have yet a few more lessons to share...
First, make sure that you attach the O2 extensions to the car after getting off the old headers, and before putting on the new ones. That way, if you need to file the little tabs, you don't have to do it around the pipes.
Second, make sure those little buggers are on tightly. I had one slip off (more on that later).
Third, make sure that you have ALL 4 extensions put on. On aspendog's car, it was impossible to not use all 4. For some reason on mine, one was long enough that we didn't notice that the extension wasn't in place. That combined with the fact that one had fallen off the rack and INTO some shadow where it wasn't seen until the next day ensured that I was short an extension.
What ended up happening was that one of my pipes is too close to one of the cross-supports underneath the exhaust, and it rattles. When I first hearrd it, I thought that one of the pipes had fallen off and was dragging. It sounded bad. Since one of the extensions isn't there, there is a little imbalance between the readings FROM between the sensors, not good, but not the end of the world. Since one of the extensions was loose, it became detached. Very bad. The computer started throwing an absolute fit, it ran REALLY roughly especially at idle, and had almost no power until 2nd (always shifted FROM 1 to 2 at redline). That along with the rattling pipes, you knew that car was coming FROM a LONG way away. I thought for awhile my car was going to eat itself.
So, the computer got pissed off enough that I had to take it to the Dodge dealer (where they can teach the computer what it needs to learn) and of course this is the first Magnum that they've seen with headers, so they weren't even sure what it SHOULD learn.
The good news is that they figured it out so it's running great, I learned that my dealer is willing to work with you on aftermarket stuff, and I got a few pointers and a story to post here.
I'm really pleased with the outcome, even if I did get a little bit more grey hair in the last 4 days. It's much more responsive (I still need to take my "after" numbers with ronneyf's FX2), and it sounds good. I'll be posting again in a few days after I get the pipes adjusted so the final rattles are taken care of and I get the header bolts re-torqued and get a chance to run those after numbers, I'll be posting again with those.
We were pretty sure of ourselves after getting aspendog's on the weekend before, and even with double checking (we thought) and a few "comedy of errors" events, we have yet a few more lessons to share...
First, make sure that you attach the O2 extensions to the car after getting off the old headers, and before putting on the new ones. That way, if you need to file the little tabs, you don't have to do it around the pipes.
Second, make sure those little buggers are on tightly. I had one slip off (more on that later).
Third, make sure that you have ALL 4 extensions put on. On aspendog's car, it was impossible to not use all 4. For some reason on mine, one was long enough that we didn't notice that the extension wasn't in place. That combined with the fact that one had fallen off the rack and INTO some shadow where it wasn't seen until the next day ensured that I was short an extension.
What ended up happening was that one of my pipes is too close to one of the cross-supports underneath the exhaust, and it rattles. When I first hearrd it, I thought that one of the pipes had fallen off and was dragging. It sounded bad. Since one of the extensions isn't there, there is a little imbalance between the readings FROM between the sensors, not good, but not the end of the world. Since one of the extensions was loose, it became detached. Very bad. The computer started throwing an absolute fit, it ran REALLY roughly especially at idle, and had almost no power until 2nd (always shifted FROM 1 to 2 at redline). That along with the rattling pipes, you knew that car was coming FROM a LONG way away. I thought for awhile my car was going to eat itself.
So, the computer got pissed off enough that I had to take it to the Dodge dealer (where they can teach the computer what it needs to learn) and of course this is the first Magnum that they've seen with headers, so they weren't even sure what it SHOULD learn.
The good news is that they figured it out so it's running great, I learned that my dealer is willing to work with you on aftermarket stuff, and I got a few pointers and a story to post here.
I'm really pleased with the outcome, even if I did get a little bit more grey hair in the last 4 days. It's much more responsive (I still need to take my "after" numbers with ronneyf's FX2), and it sounds good. I'll be posting again in a few days after I get the pipes adjusted so the final rattles are taken care of and I get the header bolts re-torqued and get a chance to run those after numbers, I'll be posting again with those.