I was on another forum today searching through the engine conversion section and came across theses headers that a Texas based company sells for $2,850. That just seems CRAZY to me. Is this really the cost to make custom headers? There has got to be a way to replicate these for MUCH cheaper. Swap in question is an LS1 E36.
Who here has made custom headers? Is this the norm for something like this?
Sounds like shit to me. I bet you could drop $500 to make an exact replica with same materials and welds.
practice
Most of that money is the labor and time spent getting everything to fit well and everything. Not sure how crazy the whole project was but if it was a higher end build I guess I could see the premium price. There was a pair of used custom manifolds for Garrett turbos for an S4 on Ebay not too long ago that I think ended for more than $1500 and the reserve wasn’t even met. I forget the shop that made them, maybe VAST.
Way more than I would ever spend but I guess it’s all relative to the cost of the car & project.
i’d say it’s alot considering you can get pacesetters for an LS1 Fbody for $250. those actually look easier to make than an Fbod header.
Seems like BS that they charge so much, considering all they do is make the part once, fab a jig up and make them like that in no time.
The issue with the swap is that there are NO other headers manufactured for the LS1 that will provide all of the clearance needed once the the motor is installed in the E36 chassis. I just don’t understand why these are so expensive. I guess I cant see header costing this much. It seems like a simple design. Jumped on eBay quick and found some LS1 exhaust flanges for $50/side. What would prevent someone from DIYing these with some pre bent pipe, flanges and tacking everything together and then taking it to a shop to have TIG welded? Has anyone here built their own headers? Hybrid crew? How much do one offs usually cost?
The fewer units they produce the fewer they sell so the price will be very high since they cannot recoup their developments costs as easily.
Making headers is not easy but not super hard either. Stainless will cost way more regardless. Its a expensive material, harder to work with, and you need to use special procedures and have to know your shit to prevent it from cracking in time. Stainless TIG welds should be back-purged with gas in addition to a good weld.
2,850 for THAT? lol
nice collector
exactly.
people bitch about custom prices all the time. Try and build it yourself and see how your hard you worked on your shitty ass header that leaks and doesn’t fit very well… that pre-built piece looks more and more attractive.
the sheer fact that you posted this question means that if you try and build your own it will be a total POS.
actually it’s 1425 for THAT, but he would need 1LH & 1RH.
Supply & Demand
Stainless Steel is expensive
V band
TIG welded
All primaries are 1 piece mandrel bent
Someone did the R&D work already
stock mani’s don’t work?
If you are interested in doing a LS1 into an e36, LMK my friend has done about 5 of them in Utica.
yea… custom headers arent that hard… they wotn look that pretty but you can get the job done…
if you have access to measuring tools for angles and a chop saw…you CAN try to whip up your own and take it somewhere for proper tig welds.
The only problem you may see here is by doing so you have not taken into account flow characteristics…if your lucky enough to have a rendering program that is engineering based the high end programs can estimate flow characteristics relatively well
thats alot for those. A 4-1 header and crossover pipe for my car is 2100 made out of 321ss lifetime warranty against cracking using high quality merge collectors
30-50whp 
lol. i always laugh when people say shit like this to try and sound smart.
maybe if you’re running a formula car and you need to extract every possible ounce of power out of your car i can see making a concerted effort to analyze the flow characteristics of a design, but seriously…
street cars don’t need that level of engineering. as long as the runners are of a fairly equal length, all the bends tangential and the merge is smooth and symmetrical, anything that you build is going to work just fine. The only other variable is tubing ID, and there is PLENTY of information that has been produced based on trial and error.
If you were building an intake manifold on the other hand, that will require slightly more insight.
supply and demend is the answer. When ls1 swapping my bros FD, the headers used were JTR (Jags that run) and were like 1300. But one they are popular and two they aren’t too hard to make fit with that setup because there is a decent amount of room.
That looks just like an LS1 Pacesetter V-2 header. Have you considered JBA shorties?
If you think its over-priced you should duplicate it and sell it for cheaper.